A long frustrating day
Jan. 26th, 2007 12:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stonebenderI think I mentioned a few times that I'm working on getting the Ed Robert's Campus, built. We are getting close to the homestretch. Groundbreaking is scheduled for the summer of this year and all the organizations that have been working with us are looking for updates on our progress...
The gory details of being a big deal disability rights advocate under the
So the BART board of directors asked for a update from the ERC. Because of some scheduling difficulties, the folks that would normally do that couldn't. I had been asking for more work (since I didn't feel like I had been contributing much lately). So Dmitri (the ERC president) asked me last Wednesday if I might be a able to make a presentation the following afternoon at 2:30. The presentation would have to be much more informal since I didn't have nor could I run the PowerPoint presentation. Nor could I handle lugging our nifty scale model to the BART board. I told them as long as I could make the presentation a little bit more of a conversation and if he could get the fiscal information set for me, I'd be happy to do it.
I was a little nervous because I had never made this kind of presentation by myself before. I had made a few "sales pitches" to potential donors, but I usually had a partner. I never had to deal much with the budgetary particulars of the project, but I thought with good notes, I'd be fine. Anyway, when Dmitri asked me to do it he said it was at the Lake Merritt BART station. He didn't have the exact address right then but he would send it to me with his notes.
Now this is where things go awry. He didn't send me notes until quite late Wednesday evening after I gave him a little e-mail nudge. After receiving the notes I noticed he still didn't have the exact address. I wasn't really concerned because I just assumed that a presentation to the BART board would be somewhere in the BART administration building on the Lake Merritt BART station.
I e-mailed Dmitri one more time and he replied a little later that he had neglected to grab the address before heading home and it was at his office. He was pretty sure that the room number was 171 and it was at the Lake Merritt BART station but he would shoot me an e-mail in the morning to confirm.
I checked my e-mail before I needed to go and didn't see an e-mail from Dmitri. I needed to call him anyway because I had some questions about how I should present certain financial pieces of information, so I called him. During the phone conversation he told me that it was at the Metro Center at Lake Merritt room 171 and that he had e-mailed me the information. There must have been some e-mail issues because I didn't see that e-mail until I got home after the meeting. It said, and I quote "The meeting is at Metro Center (101 8th Street) at Lake Merritt BART, room 171". I've tried to google the address and see if I'm right, but its not obvious to me.loracs thinks I'm wrong, but I'm not sure. I would really like the Metro Center to be what I thought of as BART's administration building. Because then what happens would feel a little less like my fault.
Anyway, the building I went to was closed for repairs which I would've noticed if I had approached it from street level, but I entered the building from the train level and there was nothing obviously closed looking in the building. BART police were walking around, I assumed everything was fine. I had somebody walking by push the elevator button to the first floor and got in the elevator. I got out on the first floor, the elevator doors closed, and there was no one around, nobody on the entire floor. Which was a problem because, I couldn't reach the elevator button on my own and there was no one to ask for help. I ended up being stuck on the floor for about three hours. I called, and shouted and screamed for help but nothing happened until a construction worker happened to come up to the first floor. He hit the elevator button for me so I could go back down but it was way too late for my meeting. Missing the meeting I was supposed to be making a presentation at and I've been kicking myself ever since. It was a very, very, very frustrating day.
The gory details of being a big deal disability rights advocate under the
So the BART board of directors asked for a update from the ERC. Because of some scheduling difficulties, the folks that would normally do that couldn't. I had been asking for more work (since I didn't feel like I had been contributing much lately). So Dmitri (the ERC president) asked me last Wednesday if I might be a able to make a presentation the following afternoon at 2:30. The presentation would have to be much more informal since I didn't have nor could I run the PowerPoint presentation. Nor could I handle lugging our nifty scale model to the BART board. I told them as long as I could make the presentation a little bit more of a conversation and if he could get the fiscal information set for me, I'd be happy to do it.
I was a little nervous because I had never made this kind of presentation by myself before. I had made a few "sales pitches" to potential donors, but I usually had a partner. I never had to deal much with the budgetary particulars of the project, but I thought with good notes, I'd be fine. Anyway, when Dmitri asked me to do it he said it was at the Lake Merritt BART station. He didn't have the exact address right then but he would send it to me with his notes.
Now this is where things go awry. He didn't send me notes until quite late Wednesday evening after I gave him a little e-mail nudge. After receiving the notes I noticed he still didn't have the exact address. I wasn't really concerned because I just assumed that a presentation to the BART board would be somewhere in the BART administration building on the Lake Merritt BART station.
I e-mailed Dmitri one more time and he replied a little later that he had neglected to grab the address before heading home and it was at his office. He was pretty sure that the room number was 171 and it was at the Lake Merritt BART station but he would shoot me an e-mail in the morning to confirm.
I checked my e-mail before I needed to go and didn't see an e-mail from Dmitri. I needed to call him anyway because I had some questions about how I should present certain financial pieces of information, so I called him. During the phone conversation he told me that it was at the Metro Center at Lake Merritt room 171 and that he had e-mailed me the information. There must have been some e-mail issues because I didn't see that e-mail until I got home after the meeting. It said, and I quote "The meeting is at Metro Center (101 8th Street) at Lake Merritt BART, room 171". I've tried to google the address and see if I'm right, but its not obvious to me.
loracs thinks I'm wrong, but I'm not sure. I would really like the Metro Center to be what I thought of as BART's administration building. Because then what happens would feel a little less like my fault.Anyway, the building I went to was closed for repairs which I would've noticed if I had approached it from street level, but I entered the building from the train level and there was nothing obviously closed looking in the building. BART police were walking around, I assumed everything was fine. I had somebody walking by push the elevator button to the first floor and got in the elevator. I got out on the first floor, the elevator doors closed, and there was no one around, nobody on the entire floor. Which was a problem because, I couldn't reach the elevator button on my own and there was no one to ask for help. I ended up being stuck on the floor for about three hours. I called, and shouted and screamed for help but nothing happened until a construction worker happened to come up to the first floor. He hit the elevator button for me so I could go back down but it was way too late for my meeting. Missing the meeting I was supposed to be making a presentation at and I've been kicking myself ever since. It was a very, very, very frustrating day.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-26 08:35 pm (UTC)I guess the thing to do now is damage control -- what are the consequences of your not being able to get to the meeting? Will the BART board get pissy about it? Definitely you need to do something soonest about smoothing any ruffled feathers, because naturally you don't want this to affect the project, comme un dit, adversely.
That, and have something tasty to feel better.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-26 08:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-26 10:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-26 11:01 pm (UTC)I'll do my best!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-27 01:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-27 04:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-26 10:12 pm (UTC)Can the meeting be re-scheduled?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-26 10:59 pm (UTC)I like to think of myself as someone who can deal with a high level of frustration, but this was over the top!
Can the meeting be re-scheduled?
Its being done.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-26 10:57 pm (UTC)Wow
Date: 2007-01-27 03:06 am (UTC)Always remember I love you! Hugs to you big bro!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-27 07:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-27 04:53 pm (UTC)