If I could explain my behavior this morning, it might help those who know me in person to understand where I’m coming from when I act the way I do in certain situations.

There are times (most of the time) when I’m content to take a back seat. When I’m content to do whatever I’m told and that’s that. Most of my life was spent in the back seat (Indigo Bunting — not that back seat) and I knew very little about the front seat, but once I tasted leadership I was addicted (another blog post altogether).

Anyway, until a few days ago I thought I was going to be the most knowledgeable person on a team of volunteers brought together to redesign the website for our local high school. I’d been on redesign teams before and had singlehandedly redesigned a number of websites. Then I was told that another person wanted to join the team. This person immediately sent out an email with all the thoughts and questions I’d had, but was planning on bringing up at the meeting because I didn’t want to overwhelm the team.

I responded with a couple of paragraphs only to show (the new person) I wasn’t some web design Luddite — that I knew a thing or two about web design. I was also pissed off. And when Dona gets pissed off, she sometimes is impossible to deal with (and talks in Facebookish third person).

So today we had our meeting. The PTSA president had us introduce ourselves and I introduced myself as someone who wanted to learn the content management system that the county provided and as a usability & accessibility specialist. When it got to the new guy he took up a lot of time telling us his credentials (large websites, own company, international blah blah zzzzzzzzz). I admit to not always looking his way and nodding in a polite manner.

Then the PTSA president suggested we talk about the county content management system but newguy interrupted and began talking about why it was a bad idea to use the system that was already in place. He obviously wants a static system where a set number of people are sent things to upload in HTML. Or something. I was wiggling, then sleeping.

Come on. He talked for 20 minutes.

At one point I interrupted him and I think we are now at battle. Unfortunately one of the assistant principals thinks he’s got a good idea.

In the meantime I’m the Usability Queen.

Gaaagh

(Ok, I didn’t explain why I’m such a bitch. Sorry. Maybe next time)