Colleague asked me to step into his faculty's library committee this afternoon as he was away. There was a part of me that didn't mind, but the more I 'uncovered' the more I found the whole thing a bit frustrating.

First I found out his daughter's wedding (the excuse) wasn't until the weekend; second he hadn't been to his last library committee meeting either; third, these are rather crucial times finance wise. He didn't brief me at all save to say that there were no 'issues' to worry about but the head of our acquisitions, J, was wiser than that and came the day before to tell me all sorts of things I had to understand and convey to them.

I know that numbers aren't really my thing - give me words anyday! - and the meeting seemed to go well enough. But I was frustrated to find afterwards that some of what J picked up on afterwards from the meeting just wasn't adequate to our needs. Well... several obvious responses leapt to mind. Ah well.