Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Sometimes I Just Don't Get It

You'd think at my age (quit snickering) this kind of thing wouldn't happen anymore. That gone are the days of sitting in the very back of the class trying to make sense of something that, to me, makes no sense at all. (think math, social studies and science back then).

Yet it still happens and, taking it a step further, it SURPRISES me every time it does.

Tonight I had my "controversial committee" meeting. We were reviewing and discussing a report provided by a consultant. I do realize that in itself is a joke. As consultants are just puppets being paid to write an official report the way the person hiring them wants it to be. But this consultant was hired to do a review of one of our Town services and report to us whether it could be expanded or not.

The expanded part was based on numbers and other variables.

I understood none of it. I read and re-read the entire 48 page report (because reading, I CAN do) and I could not, for the life of me, make any sense out of it.

What's worse is I didn't want to tell anyone that I just didn't get it. I didn't get the columns of numbers and totals and I didn't understand the context of the report and how it tied with the various charts and such.

It's very frustrating when that happens and it's not like I could raise my hand and say "Umm I don't get it", like Tom Hanks did in his landmark movie Big. I'm not ten, although tonight I sort of felt like I was.

The one saving grace came at the end of the meeting, when one of the other members pointed out how the report itself (in addition to having various errors in the figures provided) was not a coherent document.

At least THAT I understood.

2 comments:

Sassy said...

Well at least you understood something :p

Anonymous said...

I would've stood up and screamed "Lies, Lies...it's ALL Lies!!"