I’m a secretary for our department and I hate parties. I don’t know how to plan them or what they should even really look like. A prominent member of our department is retiring and I have been dragged into the party planning process by default.
Current covid restrictions have effectively diminished any kind of celebration to a glorified children’s party. It will be in a park, with no alcohol, cake from Costco, and whatever else anybody wants to bring. This was largely decided by my boss and his boss, but more and more keeps getting dumped on me.
I was corresponding about dates and places and then abruptly got an email from one of them “We want you to pick a date and reserve the park before ______ goes on vacation.” It’s not that easy. The logistics of spending any kind of money at my job are an absolute nightmare. Lo and behold, I did some digging, and we weren’t allowed to rent a park. So boss’ boss just spent his own money.
I offered to set up a Venmo to collect funds to cover the rental cost/snacks or ask everyone to bring something, but I just got an email from my boss “re003, I’ll call you.”
This is turning into a “You need to just take charge and do it.”
The retiree doesn’t deserve this kind of shitshow. And party planner was not part of my job description. I absolutely hate how we all just get dragged into it by default. We’ve had exactly one retirement party in the four years I’ve been there, it was planned by someone else, and I have no idea how she pulled it off or where she got the money from. It was beautiful and done right but even she’s done with the whole thing and hasn’t chimed in at all.
TL;DR – Getting a shitty retirement party dumped on me because I’m the secretary and apparently that’s what we do.