May I recommend a hot toddy for that?

I work with a lot of volunteers for my job. In fact, I directly manage and work very closely with over 40 volunteers for 8 or so months of the year. These people range in age from teenagers to retired men and women in their 60s, and each person is pretty different. Overall, I really enjoy the group, and their range of experiences and personalities often offer me entertainment.

Last weekend, the organization I work for had a big event, but my portion of the event (involving some of my volunteers) was cancelled the day before. To make sure that everyone knew that our portion of the event would be cancelled, I phoned each person and sent them an email to this fact. The main event still occurred, and one of the volunteers, "Matthew," came up to me at the event and confronted me about why I didn't tell him our part of the event was cancelled.

"Matthew," I said, "I talked to you yesterday on the phone to tell you it was cancelled. At the time, you were reading the email I sent out to that same effect."

"But I thought the email said that the event wasn't cancelled."

"Matthew," I said, "the title of the email was 'Cancelled - X portion of this event.'"

"It was?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Oh. I've had insomnia this week so I've been taking Ambien. That's the second conversation that I've completely forgotten."

Ooops. Maybe he should have tried the hot toddy method before he went the pharmaceutical route!

Unfortunately, on the same day we talked on the phone he also offered to contribute $750-$1000 to my organization. He's going to have some beef with Ambien if that charge shows up unexpectedly on his credit card bill!