Last week I did a bit of venting by writing about folks who — unsolicited I might add — offer to do pro bono work for our non-profit, but end up not doing jack-shit. The column was written to ward off individuals who have no intention of following through with their sincere-sounding offers. I’ve got better things to do with my time than to juggle my calendar to schedule meetings that are not going to happen.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was a young woman who (after picking the date, time and place for lunch) cancelled three times in a row — all at the last minute. So, instead of attempting to reschedule a fourth time I sent her a link to the article, which caused her to get her panties all bunched up. If you recall the article, I didn’t mention her name, or the name of the organization that hosted the event where she initially approached me, business card in hand.
While I can appreciate the fact she was stung by my bluntness, to call the article mean-spirited (a feeling she expressed in an email response to me) is simply a mischaracterization; indeed, if I had wanted to be mean, I would have put her name in the screed … I didn’t.
But the article did elicit an unexpected response:
Mr. Frazier,
I just read your Cool Cleveland article I’ll Get Back to You. You’ve definitely had a bad run of charitable professionals. I’ll throw my card (website in this case) into the ring to see if you’d like to take another chance. I just celebrated my 39th birthday so I may not be considered a young person by comparison to those who have stood you up, but I am sort of bushy-tailed. I’m working on building my portfolio for a business that a long-time friend and I are trying to get off the ground.
If you see any value to the projects you are working on with the aerial photography services we offer, I’d definitely be interested in connecting. And, it’s against my religion to not reply or to even be late on anything business.
Mike – SKYvantix.com
I’m on this like a pit bull on a soup bone.
Now, you’ll rarely hear me wax religious (it’s against my religion to do so) but as I’ve written in the past, our vineyard and BioCellar projects have been touched by Grace: every time — and I do mean ”every time” — we’re in need of something, someone magically appears almost out of nowhere to fill the need. I’m here to tell you it’s downright spooky.
Case in point: We’ve just finished up the exterior of the BioCellar, and in preparation for the Grand Opening (which will occur in mid-October) I wanted a photo of the newly constructed building, but one that also showed part of the vineyard; and the only way to get such an image is from about 25 or 30 feet in the air.
For the previous couple of days I’d been pondering how to obtain such a photo, and had come up with the idea of placing a 12-foot stepladder in the bed of my pickup truck and climbing up to the top of it to see if I would have the right vantage point for the shot.
As my wife sometimes does, she looked at me as if I had taken leave of my senses. She asked me to delay my foolishness for a few days (not so that I would reconsider, but so she would have time to contact our insurance agent and up the amount of my policy; something I knew she would do, since she’d already done it once before, seven years ago, when I bought my Harley).
Anyway, I answered Mike’s email and two days later he and his lovely wife arrived at the appointed time and he soon had his drone flying above the vineyard, snapping a photo every two seconds. It was a real blast.
I now have some great aerial photos of the BioCellar and vineyard, but more importantly, my faith in pro bono has been restored — all I had to do was to get the bullshitters out of the way so that a genuine person could step up.
If the young lady in question got her feelings hurt, I do — to some extent — apologize but I’m left to wonder if she’ll ever take personal responsibility for her own unprofessional actions.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.
One Response to “MANSFIELD: Look, Up in the Sky! It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, No, It’s a Drone!”
Chris Cowen
Fantastic!