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2024-11-14 - 8:38 a.m.

I forgot to give the marketing for arts org update.

So , someone on the board was like "I have a guy I use. Called him today, can get these ordered tomorrow"

So I told my guy to stand down. Don't bother with quote.

Lo and behold just yesterday -

I mean that was at our last board meeting , what three weeks ago?

So just yesterday the person emailed the board a quote.

A QUOTE

I couldn't believe it. I take people literally, at their word.

I should not have told him to scrap it and let it go.

The other person just got a quote. He could have had that to me the day after our meeting as he was working on it but I took them at their literal word and the board seemed to want it done immediately.

I sent him an email "send me the quotes after all if you want. If you don't want to I understand. But if you do - well they may want the option of paying less as turns out there was no order placed yet."

I did have him pull T shirt quotes. I just could not let them pay a few hundred dollars more on an order unless they chose to in order to support a local business.

It was just frustrating to me.
Cause the meeting before I had pricing but they did not want to discuss it. I had them all go to the website where you could see the items and the pricing on the web site ( he participates in one a distribution org creates for all the members of their professional org of promotional swag stuff-- many are part of that same network. They connect to the SAME suppliers- the professional org manages the web sites of all the members. The prices are all the SAME- but he sells less than what anyone who goes to his site will see to his friends and long term customers. Those prices have a mark up. He doesn't need such a mark up. Single guy, no kids, owns the home been in for 20 yrs now. His labor cheap - hey its Buffalo. )

All for that buying local to support one's community actually when can afford to do so. He is all for that as well. Hell, the cost of living here is high.

It was funny however as one board member texted how they still needed to get comparative quotes to get the best price on the T SHIRTS-

so I had re-engaged him. Simply following that lead.

But then I sensed some push back response -( Oh I may have already vented and written about this- but this is perhaps what is upsetting me and keeping me awake?)
The Karens

I will call them the Karens

They are just all truly lovely ladies

But sometimes women get catty

I don't read it.
I am not good at intuiting and reading between the lines at first.

I am not wired like that.

I swear the trans gene may come from me as I swear I think like a man at times!!! VERY literal-- oh the autistic gene.. lol ( one and the same apparently- in some)

[ ASIDE HERE -Oh yeah folks who are freaking out about the schools influencing your kids-- ah no. Turns out for many it is a genetic mutation of chromosomes having more than just the one deviation thought.
Its often genetic.

No, cultural influences are affecting GENES.

And I joke about it being "The trans gene" as it is not one gene but a number of variations which explain those who end up with gender identification differences from straight up boy girl
CIS as it is called...
anyway....

I swear my brain works like most men I think. Yet I swear some of the men in my life have brains that to me seem more like typical women. . . but I digress]


So I did not socially read the room so to speak on the text thread where someone wrote "We need to get other quotes to compare prices"

And told him to get me a t shirt quote. I mean this is his jam. He can get them near wholesale for us if he chooses to.

But the prior quote was from someone that someone had a falling out with on the board. I am never in the loop of the social stuff. I am frankly clueless about what that was over. Just as clueless as I was when I read the text "We still need to get other quotes" And should have interpreted it to REALLY be Karen code speak meaning
"Lets not give that bitch the business. She was a bitch to us.."

Ok true- I know she has been bitchy to me! I know MY FEELINGs were hurt when I heard her blurts

"Fuck her" back when I was trying to do some thing- whatever it was...
for benefit of the org and somehow supported hearing ideas of another board member she had some unknown beef with.. . I can't keep up... maybe it was the other gal was the LOGO police? HA HA

Maybe it was over the nonsense of actually ordering t shirts?? HA HA

I mean as my guy explained
you have to follow the licensing requirements

BUT if they send a pixelated version that is suitable for digital print they may not be upset if you are not EXACT when using a screen printing on a larger version

In fact he almost NEVER prints exact as the visual, once enlarged often benefits from a graphic artist changing it imperceptibly to the naked eye- but actually increasing the space on the edge of color gradation for example- to have a bit more of a distinct line or shape-
or if you enlarge what looks like black on a computer it has greyscale boxes of variations of black and greys...
and you don't want a screen printed t shirt with boxes of grey and black-

you actually really would like a shirt that looks NICE With the black as a black
I mean can shade if want.... but he knows how to honor a licensing agreement but tweak the art just enough to have it not look bad.

He said most art files will not look good once blown up without just a bit of fine tuning

thus his art program he lives by

This is what graphics artists do.

So I think now it is likely absolutely ironic that the past ill feeling between past members may have been over logos and honoring our integrity of the licensing agreements we had regarding use of logos but the other former person who understands swag marketing not wanting to have products that look like crap.

I recall that history-- which somehow led to the blurt of the one direct person-
"Fuck her" simply as I wanted to respectfully allow the logo policing person to be able to explain her worries and talk it out as to how we could resolve concerns. Diplomacy was not always well received. ( I have no hard feelings really, honestly)

OMG this is the stupidest shit to blow up and create discontent.

I HOPE more to this story I just don't know.

MAIN POINT From me is that I found it surprising that there was not an order already in for the marketing swag
and I missed the nuance of that prior conversation- the "I talked to my guy, will have them ordered by tomorrow" that it was not REALLY done deal like it was made to sound; but REALLY Meant "OMG I have no patience for this - lets just get it done. Can one person just handle this and lets stop talking about it? Fuck I will do it myself if I have to!" ( Which was the interior conversation that came out "I talked to my guy today and can order these tomorrow"- not actually true) I totally missed that!!

AND I missed the nuance of the texted "We need to compare prices and get a couple quotes " To likely REALLY MEAN "Lets not give that bitch the business"

so lets' PRETEND to get quotes and have justification to not order from her.

Whatever...
The Karens are still lovely people. Maybe my reading between the lines after the fact is wrong too. Maybe the internal conversation in the head of the one giving push back on the text thread of why " You don't understand, there are shipping costs. This will cost more if it comes from Buffalo"- was really some internal conversation in that texters head "Oh shit I really want to give my cousin the business" LOL-- or fill in the blank with the local supplier.... Whether they know the local supplier or not, honestly if the board wants to shop local that is fine. But if they want the best price I just want to let them know they can do better. I mean my guy said T shirts can be delivered in a few weeks easy. I heard someone else they were talking to say "They may not be in until Jan" ( meaning they might not have a local screen printer and are outsourcing all of it- both the wholesale tshirt and the printing of it) to somewhere that will need more time. I know my guys screenprinter shop in Buffalo turns his items over in one day. He knows the supplier has the color shirts we want.

And this being the biggest thing to worry about is a huge indicator life is good.

Seriously.

My kid who worked as a teacher in an inner city school commented on the school board fighting over parents rights
"Those are such privileged suburban concerns. City schools parents are worried about survival. They don't have time for shit like that. They are worried about working to make their rent and who is going to watch their kid or can they bring their kid to work and the schools are hustling to get freaking school supplies."


OMG is this perseverating??? I have to go get work done now. SO GLAD there is a Marketing committee with four other people delegated to handle this. And Soooo appreciative of the Karen who is managing the ordering!! I am just sending the quotes to that smaller committee now and leave it up to them and her to do their job and the decisioning. Too many cooks were on an email thread that went out to the whole board and I think that is what created confusion. I think next meeting I will make a motion to just fund the marketing committee with an annual budget and let them handle it. Let them make all decisions and just give the board a monthly update. For real- the board needs to let go of control if they want efficiency and just TRUST her to do her job well. We don't need to discuss every bit of minutia of details. Maybe I will have enough respect to sell that idea? I hope so.

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So much for nap then ready for work- I just needed to vent ( perseverate?) just a bit more. Cause my Buffalo guy was perseverating on every detail to get it right as he got us a quote and I should not have told him to stand down. It was BS items were - 2024-11-14

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