different ways to stretch

Interesting night.

Being PTA president has given me the opportunity to work on skills that I would never have the need to work on otherwise. Mostly, (totally) I'm talking about interpersonal communication skills. At work, I need to get along well with two people (who are mostly carbon copies of my geeky little self anyway) . I've known GC for more than 20 years, so he almost counts as family, and he lets my random days of being a total bitch roll off his back and he hardly notices. Other than him and wonderboy (who I never get snippy with because I think he is the god of science and I shamelessly mollycoddle to him), the rest of my time is spent in front of my computer. I can handle that very easily.

As PTA president, I'm communicating daily with all kinds of people who are vastly different than I am. This means that I'm having to stretch. I'm having to learn to get along with people who don't think like I do and who (gasp) I may not even want to have as a friend, much less be a carbon copy of. This is all a good thing for my growth as a person. It's also very humbling.

I am a huge know-it-all, type-A, in-control little snot for anyone reading this who doesn't know me. (I know!!! I'm hearing the gasps of disbelief all the way over here on the east coast!!! Stop laughing my sisters and mom and dad and Mare.) I like that fact that I know it all. I enjoy being right.

Well.

There is a particular person on my PTA board that I have some trouble relating to. (Dear neighbor M knows EXACTLY who I'm talking about). She's my treasurer this year. I was treasurer for the last two years. So I am all thick and smug in my very vast knowledge of PTA treasurer-dom. I'm the expert, you know. I'm the darling of PTA finances at our school. So at our meeting tonight, I was horrified to discover that she'd written a check to herself to cover startup cash for the cashbox for one of our events. In all of my time spent researching this problem myself, I've never been able to find a decent solution to this issue (can't write checks out to cash, you need a receipt or invoice for all checks written, etc) so I resorted to using my own money for startup cash and reimbursed myself when the event was over. The current treasurer wasn't willing to do this. The nerve!!! I got all huffy at her insinuation that I wasn't actually the know-it-all, and I let her know the error of her ways. What was she THINKING to question my authority? I am the great know-it-all of the PTA!!!! (OK, I wasn't really all that bad. But inside I was thinking all these things).

So I came home and let myself decompress and realized that I was not learning new interpersonal relationship skills this way. I took a deep breath, wrote an email to the state PTA treasurer asking for guidance (copying her) and then sent her an apology. Almost immediately, I received an answer from the state treasurer, basically in support of her position. We are not expected to use our own cash as start-up cash, and really, that's a bad idea. Her way of handling it was the correct one.

So I let her know that. And I thanked her for keeping on me about it and I told her she was right. Ouch.

That was not all that easy for me because I am the PTA treasurer goddess with her slip showing now. Really. I'm a jerk for not opening myself up to the fact that I don't know it all. Well, I'm being awfully hard on myself. I DID, in fact, do that, but only after the fact. I'm not good at interpersonal relationship skills in the heat of the moment - only much later do I become reasonable.

I'm learning. And I'm enjoying that opportunity, really. These are the sorts of things that I never ever ever have to face at work or in other areas of my life. I surround myself with friends who are a lot like me and who think mostly like I do. This is a chance for me to grow in an area I've never stretched myself in before. It's humbling, but it feels good, in the end.

Kind of like the yoga poses we practiced during our program after the business meeting tonight.

(and yes, that was my idea!!! see why I'm such the PTA goddess???) (snort)