Monday, March 07, 2011

Always follow the directions

As you may know, I'm a teacher.

My BIGGEST pet peeve is when students do NOT follow the directions.  I'm like, come on, people, just READ.

Here's the irony, teachers NEVER read the directions.  EVER! 99% of the time, it's cool I can figure it out on my own. 

Here's where it bit me in the ass.

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest.

There was a video to watch... I didn't watch it.

There was a step by step FAQs for the uploading process. - I didn't read them.

I uploaded my 5K words.  I uploaded my file to the server.  I thought, "gee, isn't it weird to judge the entire work based off of 5k, oh well, they must know what they're doing."

I made it to the first round and I discussing the contest with my friends, who also made it. WOOT US.

They said something like, "at round 3 they read your whole novel."

My jaw dropped, "what? you're kidding, right?"

They blinked at me, like you're an idiot, Erinn.

"yes, you needed to upload your whole manuscript."

Insert loud cursing here.

I quickly clicked over to the page to see what I uploaded and OH NO its locked.

FAIL.

So here's the thing, I didn't read the directions and now I can't can't move further than round 2.

SUPER FAIL.

Now am I sad about it? Nope.
Did I cry about it? Nope.
Instead I think it's SUPER FUNNY.  I spend HOURS a month explain to my students that you need to read the directions.
Here's what we in the teaching profession call a teachable moment.

I told my students, we all laughed about it.  And I'm 100% cool with it.

Happy faces all around.

Don't forget to sign up for my LIFE IS AWESOME contest.   Or Mo's Bucket List Blogfest.  

9 comments:

  1. hehehehehehe Oh, Erinn. hehehehehe

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  2. LMAO- I'm glad you found humor in this situation. I'm a teacher too and I constantly get on my students' cases about following directions--but I do notice that a lot of my colleague's choose not to read through e-mails etc. that list directions. Teachable moments are priceless :D

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  3. Aww, I'm glad you can laugh at yourself. :) I work with teachers and I constantly realize that many of them don't read directions--even when they come to my office and complain that their students don't. I'm glad that you're fessing up!

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  4. NOOOOOO! Oh Erinn, I am glad you can find the humor here. Are you sure you can't contact them and upload it now?

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  5. awe, that stinks, but it is rather ironic. there will be more contests!

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  6. This is funny, and ironic considering I followed the directions and failed to make it past the first round. Want to borrow my manuscript?

    Kidding.

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  7. AHHH I hate when that kind of things happens. But it's actually really awesome that you turned around and told your students about it. I always loved when teachers let their guard down and weren't afraid to admit they made mistakes, too.

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  8. Yeah, I've had similar things happen to me while querying and pretty much the same outlook. I'm not the most patient of people and tend to 'skim' when I should read;)

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  9. OHHH NOOO! Such a bummer. I'm glad you have a sense of humor about it though. Lesson learned!

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