[Fg-general] Re: My thoughts on today

[Ryan Yeske]

Alan Andrew <alandna at telus.net> writes:

[...]

> I find the recent HR issues troublesome, for 2 reasons.

Thanks for sharing, Alan.

> 1. Why have so many of the, to me, senior staffers left so close in
> time? I don't know all names, but David, Ryan and John come to mind.
> Is there a common cause? And there may be good cause.

[...]

First of all, I apologize for not writing any sort of parting message to
the general list either when I gave notice in October of last year, or
when my last day arrived, in January of this year. Honestly, I didn't
really know what to say.

Probably everyone reading this knows how busy, chaotic and stressful day
to day operations can be at Free Geek. Anyone who has worked as a staff
member, volunteered, dropped off equipment, or shopped in the thrift
store has had the opportunity to see how out of control things can be.
And yet it all stays together, somehow.

What is maybe less known to everyone is how after 6pm, on Sundays and
Mondays and during any other "free time" outside of shop hours, many
people continue to work, argue, plan, strategize, and organize around
Free Geek.

I can say that I got burnt out.

I also felt that things were not heading in the direction of getting
better. I also saw things happening that I didn't believe were true to
the Free Geek principles. I often didn't feel like I was working on a
cohesive team. There was continual talk of quitting by this person or
that person; continual talk and disagreement about the existence or
function of the staff collective; bickering about what was controversial
and what wasn't, and therefore allowed to be decided privately by a
small group; arguing about what Portland does in the case of XYZ, and if
that fact even matters to us or not; discussions among some staff about
removing other staff members; what was policy, what wasn't; etc, etc,
etc.

I also feel that there is a serious imbalance of power and
responsibility both within staff and across the organization. Everytime
I hear someone talk about the 'higher ups' or about 'the bosses' or
anything like that I'm reminded how badly we are failing here.

I have a lot of regret about not speaking up earlier about what I now
identify as some very fundamental problems. Instead, I tried to keep
focussed on day to day work, keeping my eye on what we were there to do,
which is to help people, and did my best to contribute what I could to
that end. I spoke up when I had the opportunity and when I saw something
obviously wrong happening, but definitly didn't do all I could to stop
things from getting to the point that they are at now. I simply decided
one day that I'd had enough, and gave my notice.

I also trusted that things would be just automatically be OK, since
after all, the membership always has the opportunity to be involved, ad
things can never go that far off. I know now that the individual members
of any organization coming to it for the first time, if not made to feel
welcome and comfortable speaking up, may not understand that it *is*
their organization, and that they *do* have a voice. Those of us with
more power within the organization must start talking less and listening
more. We must spend more time encouraging others to share their opinions
and create a more fully inclusive environment.

Everyone out there who cares about Free Geek, SPEAK UP!

It is long past the time when we need to all come together and address
these core problems. We need to drop everything and solve this right
now.

Ryan