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Miscommunication

Sara Lazarovska's picture

We all (freshwomen and senior ecological imaginers) agreed unanimously that we wanted to get the biological tours of BMC campus done before Thanksgiving Break due to the amount of work we had to do after the Break. One thing we could not agree on, however, was the exact time. Numerous e-mails were exchanged back and forth, but no agreement could be reached. Thus a Doodle doc was born. We all put down the times we could meet, but not a single time frame seemed to work for every one of us. While this was happening, it was somehow decided to meet on a Saturday from 10:30 to 12:30, and in the e-mail talking about it it was mentioned (can't recall by whom) that the time would work for me too, since I was free from 11. I e-mailed everybody back, telling them they got the wrong idea: I was free from 1, not 11. But that seemed to go unheard and the decision was made to go on our biological tours then, and when I saw the e-mails discussing that it was ttoo late. All logistics aside, I am really sorry we didn't manage to go on the tours - it would have been lovely to find out more about the botany of the BMC campus. However, I do feel that my voice and opinion were not heard at all in this project; Zoe and I tried to reschedule the tours but we got negative response, and the agreement about the initial meeting completely disregarded me and what I had to say. I don't know why this happened, but one thing I know for sure is that I don't like not having my voice heard and feeling invisible.

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Comments

sara.gladwin's picture

on hearing other voices

I understand and hear your frustration, and I apologize that there seemed to be so much misunderstanding surrounding our tour. However, speaking for myself, the only email I recieved from you about the timing of the tour was not until late Friday night of the 16th, the day before we were all supposed to meet. It was frustrating to me that so little communication occurred the week before this date when we could have been figuring out how to all meet together at a time that worked better for everyone. The timing of the tour did not work well for most of us, but since I did not hear back from either of the freshman until late in the week, I assumed that you would attempt to meet with us. While I shouldn't speak for ekthorp (one of the other upperclassman in our group), I feel the need to point out that she had cancelled some of her own plans in order to attend this tour because she understood that none of us could find a convenient time. We all felt disregarded in the planning stage of this tour.

When you emailed us back to reschedule, it was frustrating to me that you assumed we would be able to make extra time for you. We had already made time in our schedules to accomodate this tour and it did not work very well. All three of us had no other time before break. Personally, I had a midterm that Monday, a paper due Tuesday, a paper due Wednesday, and a paper due Sunday, on top of all the normal workload I have and additional meetings and classtime. I know it can be frustrating to feel like your voice is not being heard, it was equally frustrating to me that it did not seem like you heard our voices; in understanding that everyone in our group had busy schedules and were trying our best to accomodate that. It felt disrespectful to me and everyone else in the group that you were unable to make time for us and give importance to our meeting.