We've had a family tradition of going to the Oregon Zoo Zoolights for many years.  We try to get there early in the day to beat the rush, ride the train, walk the zoo and then have some hot chocolate.  This year, with the snow and Kathy's parents being with us for Christmas, was going to be even more special.

However, on the way into the zoo, I noticed "that" smell.  If you have worked in an electronics lab for a few days, you will have smelled it.  It's the acrid smell of burning electronics.  Finding the source of the smell was pretty easy, as there was smoke coming from one of the nets of LED Christmas lights covering the fences.  We hurried down the path, looking for a zoo volunteer or staff member and found one by the train ticketing booth.

That volunteer contacted a coordinator, who directed me to take the volunteer back to the light with the problem, and that someone who meet us there to try and fix the problem.  We walked back up there, and just as we got there the lights in that section of the netting went out.  I showed her where the smoke had been coming, and then we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Kathy, her parents and the boys got into line for the train and went for the ride.  They told me the ride was great and they had lots of fun.  I on the other hand, spent the time chatting with a very nice, very cold volunteer as we waited for someone from facilities to show up.  She called the coordinator twice and was assured that we should continue to wait, and that someone would be coming soon.

I gave up and left just as Kathy and the family got off the train, and together we got to enjoy the rest of the night, but the experience stuck with me.

I've volunteered for a lot of things; I've helped people move, do yardwork and maintenance, I've cleaned up vomit at church sleep-overs, I help clean up the kids' school once a year, I serve on the media team at my church once a month, I help people on the WebGUI forums, IRC, fix bugs and contribute to the code in the core.  That night, I sacrificed family time to help the zoo fix a problem.  It was a pretty trivial problem, but I know that LED lights cost money.  Maybe I should have just unplugged the net and walked away, or showed them where the problem was and walked away, but I'm not good at walking away when I see problems.

My take away lessons from the event:

1. Lack of follow-up hurts credibility.  I won't be so quick to trust someone on the other end of a walkie-talkie again.  If the person from the facilities crew had shown up, this story would have had a very different ending.
2. Lack of communication hurts credibility.  The coordinator could have followed up with us, and with the facilities team.  That would have been much better than us waiting and waiting in the dark (literally!).
   

Goals:

• Try to answer emails with questions within two days of receiving them.
• Keep people in the loop with what is going on with projects.  Weekly status reports, unless people ask for more or less communication.