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I've been made aware of a vile and slanderous conspiracy against me, and need some advice.
A group of people are trying to get me to accept a vacant position on a municipal corporation board, and aren't taking "haha thanks for your confidence I'll think about it and get back to you don't call me I'll call you" as an answer.
What's the tactful way to say "this public service would get in the way of my valuable gardening time and also I would probably end up arrested for assault at every meeting"?
I'm sure a lot of people here have turned down "offers" of job responsibilities, management crap, admin duties, etc. It's a totally new experience to me, because my bosses have usually been good judges of character and potential.
The word you’re looking for is ‘no’.
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Against the grain of the advice you are looking for ... but maybe take the position? How bad could it be? And could you term limit yourself?
Communities are made better when people step up and do volunteer work. It won't really feel like you are helping a whole bunch, but maybe you doing this annoying but necessary tasks frees someone else up to do less annoying and less necessary but more beneficial tasks.
I was the secretary for the parent teacher organization at my daughter's small pre-school. I was mostly helping put emails together. It sucked and it was boring. But it wasn't a ton of work. And me doing it meant that the other parents in the organization got more done organizing fun events for the kids.
I'd totally do it if it was a position like yours. Jokes aside I'd really like to volunteer more, but with something that's either already functional or that I've got the power to fix.
The story behind this one is that they got absolutely played by a big new contractor, the board members responsible have been bailing as the consequences become apparent, and nobody has any idea how to solve the situation.
A few of them decided to rope me in because I'd privately warned against it in the first place. But what am I supposed to do to help when my warning was literally "if this doesnt work out, you won't have an exit plan"?
I know they're not deliberately setting me up as a fall guy, but that's how it would work out.
You're right though, it's time to find some volunteer work, maybe through the local church.
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"No thank you, I'm not interested". It really is as simple as that.
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