Thursday, July 23, 2009

Accountability

This has nothing to do with crafting this morning....it has to do with some personal observations about people and the fact that I hold myself accountable for everything I do, as I was taught to by my grandmother.

When I first discovered Yahoo groups, I immediately joined a ton of them. Over the past couple of years, I have left the majority of them. The few that I still belong to are in the original group I joined and I dearly love everyone of them. This past year, after moderating one of them for a number of years, I was made co-owner of the group. This group has become a very special part of my life and the friends I have gained from it are priceless. On this group, we have always tried to maintain a level of integrity and accountability that you don't see on a lot of groups. We frequently host swaps, which we absolutely hold everyone accountable for completing. We had a member who consistently failed to complete her swaps on time, always had excuses for her actions and after a lot of consideration and thought it was time to remove the member from the group. The e-mails received by this person have been unbelievable....we have been accused of not being christian enough to understand her situation....although we gave her every chance to do what was right and she failed every time. Simple directions were beyond her comprehension and now we are the bad guys for removing her from the group. In addition to removing this member, we had another member quit the group because we were treating her "special friend" poorly. When in fact, in the end it was the member themselves that caused her to be removed from the group....we just tried to maintain a certain standard for the group. We have obviously been successful with the group, as it has grown by leaps and bounds.

I am not sure about how others were raised, but I was raised to be accountable for everything I did....good or bad. I was taught that if you make a commitment to something or someone you follow through with that commitment no matter what. So, I guess it amazes me that others don't have the integrity to do that also. I know circumstances make life difficult at times, but at the end of the day...you still have to do what's right.

I hope when I pass from this life, that what my friends remember about me the most is that I always kept my commitments and that I tried to be a good friend.

Thanks for letting me ramble and we will be back to crafting over the weekend.....those signature blocks are not going to make themselves....dang it anyway.


Anett

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I belonged to a few online groups and encountered different but similar problems
....6 out of 8 ladies in one group never got their Row Robin returned to them??
....someone I considered a friend took offence because I asked how she was??
....I posted to a group asking them to consider their comments before they posted as some posts were inflamming the group and I was asked to leave the group??

I dont belong to any groups anymore!! I miss certain things but I dont miss the problems that always seem to arise.........I will say however that I have made a couple of really good friends and they are my group!!

Pat

QUILTING IS BLISSFUL, DI said...

Hi Anett--I am new to your site and my name is Diane--I too have gone out on a limb and joined the Sig block swap--the 70 small blocks didn't seem so bad at first--but then I realized that I only knew about 4 others on the list--and to me--what good is a Sig quilt if I don't know the Sig's so I am working at getting to know all of you so that when my blocks come back they will be truly signed by my friends--hope you will be over to visit and to get to know me too. Have a great day--hugs, just, Di PS I think your group did the right thing--as hard as it was.

*karendianne. said...

Great, thoughtful post. You know, I try never to engage in swaps or even commitments of any sort that have to do with my quilting. Not because I don't want to give but because I know the commitment will stress me out! And I'm not interested in being a flake.

That's part of taking responsibility, too. Knowing what you can't do and not getting involved in the first place.