It’s Complicated.
After hosting a Saturday event at my office, I had limited time to get to a fundraising GALA. Let me just add at this point to the story, an expensive GALA WHERE the most worthwhile time is the cocktail hour when the networking opportunities are at their highest.
I had purposefully left the snail mail invitation at home because I knew I had received an email reminder that I could access on my phone. This was important because I needed to know the location of the parking for the shuttle to the EVENT. First I found the email reminder. NO address for the shuttle location was included. I went to the website for the non-profit. NO address for the shuttle location was included.
Who do I call? What do I do? Is someone even going to hear their phone if they are already at the GALA? I CALL the area police department. The dispatcher promises to check with some officers but gets called away on an emergency.
I rapidly text anyone I can think of: where is the shuttle parking lot? We drive and drive. What should have been a 15 minute drive from my office to the event has become a half hour drive quickly turning into 45 minutes. Click – click I am losing networking time.
Finally I call the police dispatcher back. She has talked to some officers and they remember seeing signs at a crossroads. GREAT!!!!!!!!!!
We have driven 10 miles beyond but we head back. As we approach the intersection, the intersection we had just driven by 20 minute earlier, I SEE the back of a sight that truly humbles me. Right by the intersection we had driven by minutes earlier was a young man standing there holding up a big poster board to tell the world, SHUTTLE.
My excuse for not seeing the sign the first time is that I was rapidly scanning my emails desperately trying to find a shuttle address. The young man with the poster board was probably just inches from me at some point as we earlier approached the intersection.
RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME.
Had I looked earlier I would have saved 30 minutes, our 15 minute drive had now become an hour, I would have not had to bother the police dispatcher or the myriad of people I texted desperately seeking an address. ALL I HAD TO DO WAS LOOK UP.
Events come and go and truly no one notices or cares if you arrive alittle early or alittle late. The bigger tragedy is what are we missing in life that IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF US.
Is someone literally or figuratively holding up a sign right next to you, and you can’t see it? Perhaps you, just like I was buried in my phone, are buried in last month’s P&L statement, the stock market, the election, or your phone.
I could make the argument that the address should have been included in EVERYTHING that had to do with this event. But that would not change the process. I was so busy looking for the answer on –line that I didn’t see what was truly right in front of me on old fashioned poster board.
Is there something that you are missing?
