Saturday, September 06, 2008

Trueself as Soccer Mom


After certain incidents last year with regard to soccer and communication (or lack thereof) I took the bull by the horns this year and volunteered to be team parent for N’s soccer team.

Ha, I figured, now just let them try to keep me out of the loop on what’s happening. Now we’re just a little more than a week into it, and there are those already trying to keep me out of the loop. I’m the one that’s supposed to be the point person for the team parents, and there is at least one little group (doesn’t there always have to be one?) that is trying to go around me and do their own thing.

I only found out because one from their clique either accidentally or on purpose forwarded an email thread to me where they were making their own separate plans for accommodations at an out of town tournament apart from those I was coordinating. I sent an email back to all those whose email addresses were located somewhere in the thread asking them to keep me in the loop on where they decided to stay so I could book the coaches in there and let the other parents know where people were staying so that they too could book rooms there if they want and so that nobody felt excluded. Today I got an email back from their ringleader letting me know where they’ve booked rooms. I passed along the information to the entire team, and lo and behold, others do want to stay there too. Yep, we’ll have virtually the whole team staying at one hotel in spite of this clique’s original plans.

Score: Trueself 1, Clique 0

Sigh. . . do people ever grow up and try to be inclusive of everyone in the group, or will they always revert back to the juvenile behavior of having to be exclusive and keeping certain others out of their little wolf pack? And why do I suspect that the members of this little clique probably belonged to fraternities and sororities back in their college days? This elitist bullshit smacks of that same mentality.

4 comments:

Sailor said...

Honestly, sometimes it does feel as if there are some people that will never grow up. Best defense is just what you did- outmaneuver 'em!

Fusion said...

This elitist bullshit smacks of that same mentality.

Yep, people's stripes never change, they just get greyer with age...

I hated the cliques in school, and still do today...

Unknown said...

I've ALWAYS hated the little cliques in school, work, sports, and even the blog land has a few!

I think you handled it just the way it needed to be handled. I wouldn't let 'em get away with ANYthing if you can help it!

Trueself said...

Sailor - It's tiring to outmaneuver them, but it feels good when it works.

Fuse - My stripes got redder this weekend but that was just the sunburn from being outside too long in the middle of the day. ;-)

C-Marie - Yes, I've seen them in blog land myself. They are frustrating no matter where they happen.