System administrators are busy people, and folks who volunteer for LOPSA tend to be busier than most.

This causes problems when we try to manage projects with volunteer help, because sometimes people get snowed under with more important things. It's unreasonable for us to expect LOPSA volunteer work to come before work and family commitments. But yet, the projects still need to get handled in a timely manner.

I've decided I'm going to start putting a "pong-by" date at the bottom of email requests to volunteers. What that means is, if I don't get a response by that date, I'm going to assume that the answer is "no" and move onto someone else. No hard feelings—I don't know whether you've fallen into a hole, you thought you'd have time and now don't, you're on vacation and not reading email, or what—I'm just going to find someone else.

So if you've gotten an email from me and see "Pong by January 1", now you know what that means. :)

Feel free to use this yourself. http://lopsa.org/pong redirects here.

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Trey Harris is President of LOPSA. His blog entries do not represent the views of LOPSA, its Board, or its membership.