[snip]

I was prepared to come into this next reply of mine all indignant like with a giant Phoenix Wright ‘Objection!’ image and all, but cooler heads than mine have prevailed and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. You were correct in that I didn’t know you were doing awards stuff before you and Joe talked about the last minute help you needed in the #Cabinet channel on May 23rd.

However you seem to be misrepresenting two things in your last statement. I’m going to extend an olive branch here and attribute it to you forgetting and/or life just being crazy, because I can understand that. I do need to address it however, which is separate from your point of having things documented for the next people, and that’s because there will always be something that doesn’t have a set procedure or established process. When something doesn’t have a roadmap on how to do it I don’t want people to just throw up their hands and be like ‘Well I tried but because I don’t know how it just won’t get done.’ I think in this case communication should have been better from your end to meet your objective.

Now I can hear your own objection coming, but let me just jump ahead of that real quick. I’ve asked Joe for a copy of the correspondence between you and him. My first refutation of your statements is when you claimed Joe hadn’t given you access to the awards in a timely manner. The email I’ve seen indicates he did so within two days, as seen in this excerpt:

---

On Sun, Apr 10, 2022 at 9:44 AM Joe P <redacted email> wrote:
Hi Rob,
I’ve given you access to the “Awards Manager” group in Exodus. You should be able to now see a whole bunch of extra stuff you couldn’t before if you refresh the page and also look in the Admin section.
Joe

On Fri, Apr 8, 2022 at 10:54 AM Robert Archer <redacted email> wrote:
Hey Joe, just had a talk with Kate, evidently she informed me that Steven previously had to request you access to the templates and all that stuff for setting up the Awards. Is this true? If so could you please grant me such access?
Thank you,
Robert Archer

---

I can corroborate from the log in the Exodus system that you did indeed get the Awards Manager group access on the 10th of April. Having access granted to something within a couple of days of requesting it certainly seems to be in a timely manner. Certainly much more prompt then what you alluded to here: “So again we had to figure it out as we went since no how tos existed and no offer to help was given on the TECH side which shouldnt have been a surprise given for weeks before I got access I said I would work on it, and then I posted Gavin was helping me.”

Maybe I’m misrepresenting what you meant but that seems to me that you’re not surprised that TECH didn’t offer to help when you weren’t given access for weeks after you requested it. In which case you certainly got that factually wrong. And as for the offer of help at all, Joe pointed you to the best people that could help you in that same email when he said: “I would definitely get Linds’ opinion on how to run the Awards. She did it for a long time, even longer than Kate and Steven.” though I will admit he also said this: “I might also remember how the system worked if I take another look at it; I built it into Exodus basically just for Steven and Kate.”

So with a system developed specifically for two people I could see there being a bit of a learning curve but you had over a month to look into it and ask questions. You had ample time to figure things out and reach out to us on TECH when you realized that you needed our help to change things. The fact that you didn’t could very well be attributed to real life sidetracking you and all, which is a fair enough point. But it could also be another example of you deciding to do a thing and then waiting on it until you do a flurry of activity at the last minute because it needs to get done right now. I don’t know and I won’t pass judgement.

At the end of the day though you attributed your failure to do the thing you decided to do to us on TECH and we don’t appreciate that. Be honest with your shortcomings if you’re really trying to go for transparency. Your using us and the pending server migration as a reason why two things couldn’t get done, Library updating and the Awards, just seems like a deflection instead of something as innocuous as ‘Oh yeah the Librarian handles that’ and ‘Well I really intended to get to those awards but I didn’t get to it in time’.

Matt - TECH

So you are right on the point Joe did get me access in two days, that is quite timely, and was not a point I was complaining about. My main focus to your reply previous was that I had made command posts, and a bump or maybe two asking for help doing so. No one communicated interest until Gavin stepped up. We did then of course talk to Kate and Linds, however, at the time we had no real idea we would have to ask either ‘does we need to talk to so and so to change an award category and/or remove one etc?’ simply cause we did not think to ask this. Yes it is perhaps an ‘assumption’ on my part that I figured ok I got access so I can add/remove a category as needed, and so since Gavin and I did not do that until we had organized everything else it was too late by then. Also you are right to a degree that Gavin and mine time was limited to make this happen. We could only each work on it together once or twice a week for different reasons. In addition to doing the Awards, I was doing everything else I do in STF both President or otherwise. Not to mention caring for an elderly grandfather as well as working 40 some hours a week, and a slew of other things.

Could I have done better? Your dang right I could have in hindsight. But hindsight is 20/20 as they say. But this again is getting off track, my intention in explaining this was not to expclietly point blame on one or more people, the point was to provide an example of challenges I faced and how I best tried to work through it for STF and the community.

If you wish to converse on this further Matt we can take it off the boards I think since its detracting from the main point of the election topics I think.

Robert Archer