You try to be nice

[tamidon]

Last year I was asked to be a judge at a chocolate festival here in Westford by a friend. I did it and it was easy,and a good deed was done. She just asked me to do it this year, and did I have anyone else who'ld be interested in judging.I replied that I could do it. She cc'd the previous head judge, who responded with glee that he had someone else to do the job and how I needed to jump right on organizing the judging and inviting people to judge it. Now, this is not my church and not what I thought was being asked of me, and I'm really not thrilled.If I bail I look like a jerk, but if I do it there's loads of work to do, and BTW, there is a short deadline,it's on February 11. I am not amused.

Comments

Cream rising

[first-clark.livejournal.com]

It's axiomatic that competence makes for rapid advancement in volunteer organizations. Kudos to you for demonstrating such. Fear not the ramifications of saying, "No, thanks," though, to this mission creep. Reply nicely to the presumptuous guy, with a cc to your friend, that you're flattered to be asked, but you can't possibly manage any more than you did last year, thank you very much. You won't seem a jerk, your ability to say no, nicely, and maintain a reasonable boundary will actually burnish your competent quotient.

Caveat: Don't use the justification of the short notice. You don't need any justification, and providing one opens the door to circumvention of your boundary. What if they ask you now to organize next year's competition? If you want to, fine, but if you don't, now you're either in jerk territory or you have to come up with another justification.

Have fun!

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that you can dodge the extra commitment without looking like a jerk by saying something like, "I am happy to participate at X level, which I committed to, but I'm sorry that I'm not able to take on more that that. I'm sorry if there was a misunderstanding about what I'm able to do that this time."

[lifecollage.livejournal.com]

I third the support of the previous two comments. You are perfectly happy to judge again, but at NO POINT did you agree to coordinate the judging. If the person doing that didn't want to, it's *their* responsibility to find someone else, not offload it onto your friend.

If you do have anyone in mind for judging, then you make the coordinating job easier by handling that extra person, but you don't seem like a jerk for saying no.