My marketing partner and I were collaborating on a project at his desk when he received an email. It was an invitation from another co-worker to a benefit concert: “Music for Myanmar.”
Rather than scroll down the details of the email’s body, my marketing partner, or “Mr. A-List,” decided to entertain himself by reading the “sent to” section. And how entertaining he found it that my email address was not on the list.
I’m slightly confused. I like music. I’d support Myanmar. What constitutes an acceptable invitee? Based on that evil smile of “I was invited and you weren’t” painted on Mr. A-List’s face, the host clearly wasn’t going on the basis of compassion.
So where do I go from here? Do I consult “The Office,” pull a Michael Scott, and show up to the party I wasn’t invited to? Or do I become the bitter businessman and swear off music, Myanmar and my exclusive event planning co-worker for the rest of my career?
Senior staff would advise directly confronting someone if you are bothered. So I decided to send my exclusive event planning co-worker an email titled “Could you quickly read a blog for me?” It was a rough draft of this blog. One minute and twenty seconds later, she came running over to me and Mr. A-List. She was semi-horrified and deeply apologetic. We all had a great laugh and then got back to work.
Though I feel great so grudge-free, I just realized that she never did end up extending me an invitation to that concert.
Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right? I say if you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em! With that, EVERYONE’s invited to my event “Music for Myanmar… AND FREE BEER!”

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