No good deed goes unpunished...

This was the post on Facebook today from a certain troop leader I know. The temptation to comment "you can say that again" under it was strong and I'm still not sure I'm going to be able to resist doing it.

As you now know we wrapped up cookie sales today. About two weeks ago our service unit cookie manager (SUCM) told me that we appear to be the top selling troop in her unit. All the numbers were not in but it was looking good for us. I don't even remember if I mentioned it to the other Cookie Mom. It was mentally filed under "I'll worry about that later." As things were coming to a close the SUCM met the other Cookie Mom and again mentioned to her that it looked like our troop was top sellers. We figured it would be really cool to be the ones to tell the girls.

So imagine our surprise, hurt, disappointment, and let down when one of the leaders posts to the GS Yahoo group that our group was the top seller. Then follow that up by the other leader posting how many boxes we sold and about how much money she figured we made. Talk about jumping the gun. All our final paperwork wasn't even done at this time. This was the response that the other Cookie Mom and I sent.

Hey (leader),

It's wonderful news and we are all very happy about how well the girls did. However, we were really looking forward to telling the girls ourselves. We worked pretty hard so the girls had the opportunity to make this a success and we wanted to share in their celebration when they found out. One of the only perks to being Cookie Mom(s) is being able to announce to the girls their success and hand out their prizes. We had hoped to be the ones to make this particular announcement.

We don't want to start a big to-do, we just wanted to let you know how we feel.
Cookie Mom 1 and Cookie Mom 2

PS. It is not necessary to thank us for our work. We were happy to do it for the girls, really.

Well, the response from the leader was quick and nasty. We didn't expect her to be happy but you would have thought we accused her of high treason. Her first complaint was that we responded directly to her email so it went to the group. Well yeah, if there is any hope of the moms not telling their daughters we needed to get that word out. Second complaint was that we attacked and berated her for announcing this. I didn't think so, in fact Cookie Mom 2 made me tone down the response, you should have seen my rough draft. She accused us of saying she had "evil intentions" and we were just mad because she "stole our thunder", which wasn't her intention. Please, dear reader, do you see any of that in our response. I assure you it wasn't even in my rough draft. We were upset, but not because we thought she did it intentionally to hurt us, just that she didn't consider that this might be something we'd like to announce. Let's not even get into the fact that this information wasn't even confirmed

So here's where we screwed up. In the beginning we had a problem in our troop. See, nobody in their right mind wanted to be cookie mom. So through a string of emails we decided to form a Cookie Team. The Cookie Team had a meeting. At the meeting we had the two leaders and us. First thing, right off the bat one of the leaders (who happens to be the one we are now having an issue with) informs us that she can be a part of the "team" but she is much too busy to be expected to actually do anything. The other leader told us she could help in the beginning but that she was going away on vacation for 3 weeks in the middle of cookie sales, and she's leaving in two weeks, so she would do what she could before she left. So we talk about what we need to know to get started and we each take "assignments". Since the one leader made it clear she didn't have time for this all she had to do was pick up some permission slips from the SUCM (who lives less than a mile from her house) and bring them to the next troop meeting in a week. The other leader was going to try to set up some booths at a bank. At the meeting we ask for the permission slips and she said she didn't get them but we could just go get them now if we wanted, which we did. So she now dumped the one thing she said she'd do right back in our lap. Okay, so much for that team member. So the other leader gets some booths set up and leaves for vacation. While on vacation she tries to stay in touch via email for the booths but it was getting to confusing with her away since most of the parents were approaching us to make the arrangements. So the Cookie Team became Cookie Mom 1 and Cookie Mom 2. We didn't bother to clarify this with our other "team members" since we were too damn busy actually doing the work. So the sale is wrapping up and CM1 and CM2 have everything under control. Damn, I digressed again. I was supposed to be telling you how we screwed up. We didn't tell the other two members of our so called Cookie Team that we planned to make the announcements to the girls and hand out their incentive prizes at a meeting. You know with everything going on you'd think we would have taken them into consideration. I mean I don't know why we wouldn't have told them. It's really only common courtesy considering all their hard work. Oh, wait a minute I have that backwards. Silly me. I'm all over the place aren't I.

So I'm wondering if it's just me. I mean with the weight of Jewish Mother Guilt always over my head sometimes it hard to know if I'm the guilty rotten party. I also sometimes get mired down by common sense. I forget that not everyone possesses that trait. So at close out we run our dilemma past our SUCM. See we lucked out, our SUCM is a life time super Girl Scout. Not only did this woman go through the entire girl scout program, she has been a troop leader, service unit manager and a cookie manager and her mother was some big boss honcho at Girl Scout HQ. This woman knows her Girl Scout stuff. So after running past her what happened she apologizes profusely for telling the leader that we might be top sellers, she had no idea this woman would do such a thing. She even said she'd remove her from the email list for cookie information if we wanted. She said what she did was totally inappropriate and that it is supposed to be the Cookie Mom(s) who gets the joy of sharing all the final numbers with the girls.

So now the other leader (who's back from vacation jumps in and wants to know how the Cookie Team became two Cookie Moms. After I explained it to her she didn't respond to my email. Guess she got my point. Oh and I cc that one to the other leader too, you know in case she was wondering.

The other Cookie Mom also sent a response to the leaders. Guess they got tired of it and never even responded to her. At least at this point anyway.

So my final line of my final email to them was "So please, if it involves cookie stuff, please run it past CM1 or CM2 before going to the group. It's all we're asking."

In the end the one leader (the one who posted the offending email) apologized. We said it was wrong of us to assume you knew these things. I'm sure they didn't pick up on the sacasm in that statement. I can tell you we have two very unhappy leaders who know they are between a rock and a hard place with this. Can you guess why? No hints..... Scroll down when you're ready to compare your answer.
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Because we did a great job, they know it and they know no one else in the troop is going to do it if we don't. So they are stuck with us as Cookie Moms. And as much work as it was we enjoyed it and the satisfaction we got from helping the girls reach their goals and do so well was sweet. So we're going to do this again next year. So suck it up ladies, tomorrow's a new day.