Strongly Worded

RSVP, Damnit

I am somewhat of an RSVP-freak. I find it agonizing to create a menu and seating plan without knowing who is going to show up. When the planning is going into a social event, I don’t mind quite as much as I do when it’s work related (although in social situations, caginess around RSVPing sometimes implies a the invitee’s desire to shop around for cooler opportunities, which is painful). With work, though, I’m working with a budget and caterers and other people who need NUMBERS, goddamned NUMBERS, before they can do their jobs. I also worry that I will look personally professionally lame if my events are poorly attended.

I am in the throes of such an event, and the event is TOMORROW, and it’s DINNER, which means that the caterer needs NUMBERS (did I mention the NUMBERS?), and a decision on whether we’ll have the event in a small scrappy room or a big fancy room. I can’t decide whether it’s better to be squished in the small room or to rattle around in the large one. (I think I’m opting for squished, in part because some sick part of myself wants the non-RSVPers to suffer for their flakiness. Yeah! They can fucking stand and starve! But this sentiment is mainly undermined by the Jewish Mother Within, who is wringing her hands and asking me how I can even think about making people hungry or uncomfortable).

In my work this RSVP things is a constant battle. I’ve planned trainings and events and endured no-shows (which is more enraging, I think, than showing up without RSVP-ing, because it’s so wasteful in terms of time, energy, and money). In my former job, we never knew which way it would go. Sometimes we had way too much food (eating away—ha ha—at our meager budget). Then we’d cut back, screwing over the handful of conscientious people, who ended up ravenous because we only ordered food for them, and it got eaten up by the others. The staff toyed with the idea of preparing individual bag lunches marked with the names of the RSVP-ers. Then the flaky ones would learn their lessons. Of course we never did that. It would be punitive, not aligned with our empowerment model, blah, blah.

I have seen successful RSVP crackdowns, however. My study abroad program offered flamenco lessons, but the director was wise to the flighty nature of Americans abroad. She made everyone pay a deposit (maybe the equivalent of $100 for ten lessons). At the end of the course, we’d get back the money for the classes we actually attended. It was very smart.

Of course I can’t do that now. I have to be gracious and welcoming and suck up the ambiguity of not knowing what the headcount will be. I have to just let it go and chill out about the food and the chairs. Which means—oy!--ignoring the Jewish Mother Within.

Posted by Dori at 5:33 PM