The Audacity of Organization

Pursuant to the last post, Pretty Lady has been thinking how much fun it would be to take a bus to Iowa and fill sandbags for a day or two. Alas, circumstances prevent her, but should any flooding arrive in the NYC metropolitan statistical area, she is psychologically prepared to Pitch In.

Largely, she has been thinking, this is because the astonishingly effective organization of the Obama campaign has led her to believe that should she show up, wearing old clothes, sensible shoes, and with some well-chosen tools and a pair of gardening gloves, organized people would tell her where to go, and how to most effectively cope with the emerging Situation.

In latter years, Pretty Lady has become a bit of a cynic. She has cut back on her volunteer work for such things as community arts organizations, nonprofits, alternative artspaces, art networking groups, and art education programs for the underprivileged, because when she DID work for these organizations, she invariably found herself running the show. This is because she generally proved to be the most-competent individual in the room, and everybody else was quick to notice, and Take Advantage.

And Pretty Lady cannot afford to become that stout, genial, ubiquitous Martyr who keeps an organization running singlehandedly, putting in 60-hour workweeks for no pay, and is presented with a plaque and a champagne toast after 25 years. What she wants is to show up, put in four hours of useful labor, and go home again.

Having a system in place, then, for effectively channelling the energy and goodwill of very part-time, but competent, volunteers like Pretty Lady would seem to be crucial for tackling Thorny Problems with grace and frugality. If an organization--whether it be a charitable used-clothing shop, a community arts organization, or Doctors Without Borders--continually pisses off its willing volunteers by having no method for communicating what, where, when, how and why, in any given situation, it will quickly find itself in the position of only having the Overweening Busybodies and the Totally Useless to work with, since everyone with an actual Life is going to have better things to do.