Coke or Pepsi

Every school has a soft drink contract because schools are full of captive consumers. Ours ran out and it fell to our new principal to negotiate a new one. Uh oh. Another high school and recently signed with Coke and received three new scoreboards. I mentioned to our principal that we needed new basketball scoreboards...she mumbled something about not wanting to have her hands tied in negotiations. I had heard otherwise...oh wait, that's something else. A new contract was eventually finalized with Coke and we switched over after spring break. A couple of weeks after spring break a Coke truck arrived with a new machine and some new refrigerator units for our concession stands. Since my office was by the door, I told them they could put them in my office and then I would find out where they would go. I radioed the office. Shortly afterward the principal arrived and started yelling at the delivery guys to load everything back on the truck. She then yelled at me for calling Coke and ordering the equipment. I tried telling her that she had ordered the stuff but she would hear none of that. Back on the truck it went.

A couple of weeks later in a meeting with HR, the HR person would bring this up. I sat and watched as the HR person and my principal argued about this incident. The principal still insisted she was right to order everything back on the truck. The two of them went at it for about 10 minutes. It was kind of like watching a tennis match. It was funny but it was sad - sad to think it was what each person at the school went through one time or another. I wanted to say to the HR person, welcome to my world.

Note: When the principal was finally fired, oops resigned, district officials would search her office and find unsigned copies of the Coke contract. It turns out she never signed and returned it...null and void! When contacted, Coke asked that the money they had given the school in good faith be returned since their was no contract. Last I heard they were still negotiating...