Was I the one who said I was going to blog weekly this year? Last post, March 19. But on my calendar popped up this notice…
2004 – 2021 is a pretty long run, so I’ll cut myself some slack. I mentioned to a friend yesterday I felt little motivation to write. She said sometimes you have to give your writing brain a break. So here it is, friends. Happy brain resting.
Here is a dredge from last year’s draft posts (September?). Be warned, it is just a rant and a request for your thoughts. Please see the question at the end.
I had clicked into this link 8 Tips for Being a Successful Remote Worker – The Community Roundtable. It provoked a reaction as a woman, a mom, a parenting grandmother: the dang veneer of what working SHOULD look like for women versus our realities. Now let me be clear – the article was not telling me to put on a veneer, and in some cases the opposite – thanks Shannon. (The shoe thing cracked me up!) It did bring up how much women have to look and act a certain way in the workforce to achieve or even maintain professional credibility. How many freaking articles have you read about how to “look professional on Zoom?”
At first we were all in our sweats and yoga pants. Then I saw more women putting on makeup and making sure their setting was “professional.” The masks were going back on. Snapback!
We need this veneer for what? Because it is important for credibility? To show we could both parent and work? What about performance?
I would have thought COVID-era WFM would have freed us from the superwoman expectations. That the reality exposed on video calls in our homes (closets, living rooms, kitchens, bedroom corners…) would have created more slack, not less.
Silly me. We should all be on equal footing right? No, over time I just saw snapback to the old ways.
When men had their kids wander in, it was somehow adorable. For us? Not so adorable. Did anyone else notice that there was more exasperation at women as their children intruded? Or the scheduling hassles when there was no child care options? I didn’t see many memes of moms looking cute as chaos erupted around them.
How many women have lost their jobs or have had to quit because there was no one else available or willing to care for their children? How many women have worked themselves sick trying to make “everything all right” for their families, their coworkers, their bosses. It boggles my mind. And work that is so invisible.
COVID gives us a once-in-a-lifetime to really change things, yet we seem to recreate what came before.
If you could change one thing, what would you change? Where would you invest your change agency?
—-> Ed Mitchell: Platform neutral » Blog Archive » Happiness located in Bristol – Alas
I’m dredging old blog drafts again. This is a dead link. But dang, I loved the title so much, I decided it would have to be reborn as a blog post. A blog search turned up nothing. So I’m going to adopt “happiness passing thingies” and bring it back to life.
In our pandemic context, there is so much trauma, most of which we can’t perceive beyond our own personal experience. As we start a video meeting, we don’t see each person’s undercurrents.
On Facebook today, the marvelous human being and author Patti Digh wondered out loud about how to honor the amazing staff and volunteers at her local vaccination site. You can’t bring presents, food or flowers — health protocols forbid. One person said she was going to dress up in green and sparkles because here appointment was on March 17, to share some silly joy. Many other suggested kind words and “eye smiles.” (Those masks!)
Then I thought back to this draft. Happiness Passing Thingies. They are everywhere. They are in words, eye-smiles, the pause to step aside for a safe six foot pass while conveying warmth and community through eye contact.
They are in the unexpected moments of grace, of recognition, gratitude and gifts. My walking partner shared how she gave one of her amazing staff people an unexpected day off to enjoy the Spring weather we so crave here in the PNW as a recognition of his above-and-beyond work.
MORE HAPPINESS PASSING THINGIES! And Thanks, Ed!
Another draft post, dredged up, examined for relevance or humor. This one from 2018, the oldest draft in my queue.
Wow, this is an old draft. 2008, the Community 2.0 gathering in Las Vegas, Nevada. Some people blogged about it (Thanks, Victoria Axelrod!) in a more – ahem – timely manner! I did a talk on the history of online community, which I live sketched as I went. Trust me, I have not tried that again. My conclusions were pretty spot on, but relatively safe. Heh!
Community 2.0 – Las Vegas – a set on Flickr
My sketch notes. 12 + years later and a pandemic, what has changed? Patti Anklam’s stuff is still spot on and I wish she was still blogging. Tony Hseih is sadly gone but his approach to customer service still warms my heart. AmyJo Kim’s stuff continues to evolve from the base she shared that year. Shel Israel has stopped blogging and sadly I can’t find many recent traces of him.
My conclusion? Us old timers are getting old. 🙂
“Consent is key. Relatedly, whatever you do, get consent from the local government and the local community. Involve them in the decision-making and processes. For example, in a humanitarian crisis (outbreak, environmental, or manmade), development organizations and INGOs (e.g., UN, Save the Children, IRC, MSF) aren’t allowed to enter a country to provide support until the country has invited them or accepted their offer. This is one example of tapping into existing structures, which are in place for a reason, as well as the importance of consent.” https://www.fsg.org/blog/covid-19-seven-things-philanthropy-can-do
I’ve been thinking more and more about how I have controlled and oppressed others through my well-meaning facilitation. I jokingly call it “facipulation,” and seek to be very transparent about how I approach facilitation. But that is no excuse to ignore my filtered and often biased approach.
I have been working to understand how better to work with the Tribes in my state as it relates to my work with an integrated floodplains management network. Informal conversations between the consultants and the leadership team have opened up many new and nuanced vistas about what consent means.
As I begin to glimpse the complexities of sovereign nation relationships (thank you Bobby), the relationships within and between tribes, and practices of who can or does speak for whom, it is clearer that I based most of my sense of “inviting people in” on my white, American, female and other identities, without having a clue how they were received by others different than me. More importantly, WHY they are perceived the way they are. My personal value was to ensure that “everyone speaks.” Does that, in fact, equal egalitarian engagement? Not necessarily.
In my belief in networked and multi-nodal approaches, I often dismissed existing power structures as oppressive, without even understanding HOW they worked. I lumped them into the buck of obstruction and sought to work around them.
But what happens when working around them makes matters worse? While you might not agree with me and I with you, dismissing the way we each wish to engage does nothing for moving forward together. So what does the path “between” look like? How do we flock together and hold our uniqueness and diversity intact? How does that inform consent and group process?