Friday, August 26, 2005

Ah Ha, Hush That Fuss " When he saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up and I said, 'No, I'm not'. And he said, 'Well, if you don't stand up, I'm going to have to call the police and have you arrested.' I said, 'You may do that.' " Hundreds of radio stations yesterday paid tribute to Rosa Parks in the only way that seemed fitting:  by playing that Outkast song. It's interesting to me the role that Rosa Parks played in the civil rights movement.  As NPR put it yesterday, she was an icon.  She wasn't a "leader," in the way that Dr. King was:  she didn't lead marches or speak at rallies.  She wasn't an organizer, though she was active in the NAACP.  She wasn't even the first person to be arrested for sitting in the "white person's" section.  She was a symbol, a member trained to be a symbol, in the same way that I helped to train dozens of members when I was an organizer.  Members take the hardest jobs, and often the most frightening.  I trained members to speak at press conferences, to testify in front of legislative committees, to lead rallies and marches, and sometimes just to be the presenter of hundreds of signed petitions to the targeted official.  It's hard, on the organizer's end, to pick the right person:  you need a combination of ego (to be the center of attention) and humility, of eloquence and heartfelt honesty.  Members are often the most overlooked part of any nonprofit:  they're given the most lip service, but in point of fact, organizations get lost in their own machinations, their political stands, their connection to the powermakers, and they forget that they stand on the backs of their members. We used grassroots members as speakers for very simple reasons:  no one cared what I thought as an organizer.  I wasn't on Medicare, or Medicaid, or food stamps.  I wasn't on Section 8 housing.  I had no story to tell.  I could offer statistics to prove our political case, but nothing quite tells a story like an actual, living, human being.  Organizers and political leaders can only do so much:  to really have an impact, you need members.  So Rosa Parks was a grassroots success story.  She exemplified every black person who ever had to suffer with unjust laws that proscribed their humanity.  She was an ideal candidate - quiet, meek, yet possessed of an inner strength beyond all bounds.  Rosa Parks was a rock, and was exactly the right person to become exactly who she became.  Every day as an organizer, I was looking for someone to become the next visible member, the next embodiment of our latest political campaign.  People are powerful:  think about Rosa Parks, James Meredith, Jackie Robinson, Polly Klaas.  Think about Cindy Sheehan.   The individual story is always, and is justly, more powerful than any intellectual, statistical, or in some cases, rational, argument that can be made.  Rosa Parks became a symbol for the civil rights movement, and suffered for it.  She and her husband lost their jobs after her famous case.  She feared for her life, and fled for Detroit, where she lived until her passing.  We warned our members constantly that there were negative effects of going public with a personal story, and Mrs. Parks truly suffered for her single act of defiance.  But in the end, she was strong enough to handle it, just as Dr. King and her companions at the NAACP saw when they decided to use her court case to launch the boycott that became the first chapter of the modern civil righs movement.  Rosa Parks was a symbol, an icon, a living reminder of all that our country has gone through (and toward the end, a symbol of all we still have to overcome.)  People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in. 3:28:45 PM     Speak up!  []

Cried Out Well, it's Friday.  As countless rock dj's have said, thank God. Wednesday wasn't a bad day, baby-wise.  He was cute, and sweet, and we went down to visit Mom at her school for the first time.  It was a little odd to change suddenly from primary care provider - superdaddy! - to "oh, this is my husband."  My wife was great, and introduced me to everybody.  And they promptly shook my hand and then ignored me completely.  That was fine - they know R, not me - but what bugged me was when I would start talking about little O, and they would literally cut me off to keep talking to R about how cute he was.  I apparently had nothing to say about the baby.  I was just the driver. Work-wise, Wednesday was frustrating.  I had a perfect at home assignment - preparing hundreds of envelopes for a big mailing.  The envelopes were stuffed, stamped, labeled, and all ready to go when my boss remembered that I was supposed to put in a cover letter.  So I had to rip open hundreds of manila envelopes, stuff the envelopes in, and reseal them with tape.  They were Frankenstein's-monster ugly, and looked ridiculous.  I had to spend an hour of my time with Oliver working on envelopes instead, trying desperately to keep him entertained on his playmat while furiously stuffing and taping.  Then R came home and helped me out as long as she could, until O woke up.  Wednesday night was rought for Mrs. B.  He either was eating or sleeping practically from the minute she came home - no playtime, no smiles, nothing.  I noticed the tears and asked what was wrong.  She choked out, "I miss my baby."  She wanted to actually see him with his eyes open, not just feeding or sleeping.  And it was worse - she was starting to feel like she was losing him, like I was having a better time with him and growing closer to him than she was.  After only three days, she felt like she was losing him. Thursday morning she went to work with tears streaming down her face, and I cried after she left.  She was inconsolable.  My wife was crushed emotionally, and I could do nothing to help her, it seemed. So yesterday was a good day - he ate, he slept, he played.  We went to University Village to visit my brother, who must have been a little bemused at how I had suddenly turned into someone who can't think of anything to say that didn't involve "Oliver" or "he started smiling" or rattles or toys or other babyness.  He was a good little passenger, bouncing around in his Bjorn and looking adorable, until he decided to spit up all over the front of it near the end.  I picked up a book for Mom:  "How She Really Does It:  Secrets of Successful Stay-at-Work Moms" by Wendy Sachs.  (It seems to be helping.) Thursday night was pretty tough for a while - I did some work and plugged in headphones so I could concentrate.  (ADD.)  By the time I was done, it was 8:30, baby was nearly asleep, and Mom was in tears again on the bed.  After she was done and nearly asleep, I suddenly started sobbing, and suddenly she was trying to console me, and that's when we really started talking. As it turns out, I had given her the impression that we were having nothing but perfect, blissful days with Oliver.  So she was convinced that I had some magic touch, and that she was somehow a bad parent because she didn't have the same kind of perfect, serene times with him.  What was really happening was that I was only telling her about the good stuff, and the things that needed to be reported.  I would tell him about smiles, and laughter, and when he ate and when he slept.  I wouldn't tell her about the crying jags, or the squirming in my lap, or the times when I would try to get him to smile and he would start screaming instead.  So last night, we talked about all of that.  I told her all of the bad stuff.  And then I explained that I never told her about it because I didn't want to be the "hapless dad."  I wanted her to know that I was good with him, and that things were working well.  And instead, she thought that I was Superdad, and that he only loved me. I think we cleared up a lot last night.  Mom's still going to have anxiety and insecure moments.  I think it helped to tell her that I had my own anxiety and insecurity all day long.  Neither one of us is perfect at this, but we're learning, and we're going to get through it. 7:38:33 AM     Speak up!  []

	Tuesday, August 23, 2005

The Best is Yet to Come When I was an organizer, there was a common understanding about your first event (press conference, rally, protest, whatever). If it went badly (as it almost always did), it was a relief, beause now you knew that every event that followed would go better. If it went well, on the other hand, you were fucked. If it went especially well - if your turnout was over predictions, or the speakers were perfect - then you were really doomed, because your expectations for events were now set so high that every subsequent event would look like a failure. I had a good day yesterday, by that accounting. It was my complete nightmare of the first day. Mrs. B went to work, and she was beside herself with pain and sadness. She went uncontrollably. I was in tears - I have never seen my wife as upset as she was yesterday. The only one who managed to keep his composure was Oliver - at one point, R started crying while holding him, and he started laughing. So she went to work. Oliver and I hung out and played for a little bit, and then I realized it had been about two hours since he last fed. Time to try the first bottle of the day. He started shrieking. He didn't want it. We struggled for a while, he screamed some more, and finally he fell asleep out of frustration and exhaustion. For the next three and a half hours, we tried the same dance - try to feed the baby, baby refuses, with louder and louder screaming and crying, he falls asleep for a few minutes, he wakes up, try to feed the baby... Nothing. He didn't eat for five and a half hours. The real tears that I noticed before are really coming down now. His eyelashes and his cheeks were soaked with tears. It was all too much for him. Mom wasn't home during the day, I was trying - badly - to push a bottle on him. Mom called around 10:30, and I was nearly in tears as I told her the news. She came home for lunch to feed our emaciated baby. He ate ravenously, like a starving man at a buffet. I sat on the couch and wept, convinced I was a complete failure. R tried to console me (nice role reversal there) that it wasn't my fault he wasn't eating. He was reverse cycling. He was too shaken up by the new circumstances. It wasn't my fault. (By the way, I'm not serious about the starving. Babies often don't eat much during the day, and they know when they really need to eat. So I wouldn't really starve unless it went on for a day or two. That doesn't make it feel any better, though.) We decided I would try to feed him earlier. Again, never wait until a baby's too hungry to feed him. (I think I waited too early in the morning. He moved beyond hunger into total freak-out.) Thank goodness - he fed once at 2:30 and again at 4:00. I felt like I knew what I was doing again. We even played a little. (That's how badly the morning went - I didn't even try to play with him because I was so freaked about him not eating.) Mom came home and fed him for the rest of the night. I felt like I had been on a roller coaster without a seat belt. It could not go like this every day - I refuse to allow it. I'll watch him more, feed him earlier and more often. But day 1 is in the books. It's over. It's history. This was my big learning day. Hopefully today goes better. P.S. My boss apparently thinks that even though they gave me a contract for 120 hours over six weeks - 20 hours per week - I only should really have eight hours of work to do this week. I received a fairly obnoxious email that said that I should notify her if I was going to work significantly more than 8 hours this week.  I don't know if she's trying to save hours for later projects, or if she's trying to micromanage my workload, or if she's trying to save money. But I don't like it. We'll see how this goes, but I hope it's not going to be a recurring issue. 7:11:18 AM     Speak up!  []

	Tuesday, July 26, 2005

The Proposal - Part 3 (Hooray!) Hooray! I get to work and be a stay at home dad!  My boss sat down across from me today and told me that they fell for it they accepted my proposal for working 15 hours a week from home.  Hooray!  So I get some guaranteed income.  Plus I don't have to shop myself around to every nonprofit in town to drum up contract work.  I was prepared to, but honestly, I much prefer this.  It's only around $900 a month.  So we won't be rich.  But we've taken some cost-saving provisions already:  we've both deferred our college loans for a year until we get settled, and we're dumping the $100/month gym membership.  I think we're going to make it. And I get to work doing the same stuff I've been doing for the past eight months.  (Hooray.)  I don't have to learn whole new jobs.  And when I get back into the workforce, I can list these guys as my employer for longer than just eight months.  (After only six months with the last guys, it'll be good to show some long-term employment again.)  But here's the best part.  I just wrote my own proposal.  I designed it, I pitched it, I negotiated the terms.  This is my project.  I love it when I take chances and they pay off.  Hooray! 6:18:43 AM     Speak up!  []

	Sunday, July 24, 2005

The Proposal - Part Two The big boss brought me into her office and closed the door.  She praised my desire to be with my kid, expressed how much she admired it, and then said no. Here's the thing, though.  She didn't say no, we can't do it.  She hemmed and hawed, felt really bad, and then said that golly, the budget just doesn't seem to allow for it. Sorry. I realized then that this wasn't a refusal.  This was a negotiation. Earlier, I had spent some time drawing up numbers.  I am a well-paid admin assistant - I had far more skills than they had hoped for, so they raised the pay by $500 a month to hire me.  If I went part time, they would still be able to pay for a 40-hour admin assistant and not spend much more than they would by paying my usual salary. So I drew up some numbers, for the remaining fiscal year (September-June): cost of my current salary, if I stayed on full-time. cost of my salary at 20 hrs/week plus an administrative assistant at 40 hours/week me at 20 hrs plus admin asst at 35 hours a week The largest different was about $6700.  So they could end up with two staff people for the price of one for not very much more.  And then I showed how many new memberships would pay for the difference in pay.  This was a strategic move:  part of my wish in going part-time is to concentrate on cleaning up their member databases and start doing some aggressive membership recruitment.  If it works, then my position pays for itself. So I handed her my breakdown.  She seemed fascinated:  my boss lives in budget breakdowns.  Twice a week, she asks my supervisor to provide some budget calculation or another.  So it really seemed to move her that I had run the numbers for her.  But then she started turning negative again.  I just don't see it, it's going to be really tough, our budget's really tight.  She mentioned how hard it was to take care of a kid and work - she had apparently helped to watch a friend's baby from a few weeks up to nine months, and was amazed how much constant work it was.  (Yes, I did resent her telling me how much work parenthood was, but only a little.)  But she said the same thing twice.  I had listed a number of tasks I could do from home:  data stuff, news updates, electronic updates.  "I can't imagine that would be twenty hours of work."  She said this twice. I leaned forward and said, "If we brought it down to fifteen hours a week, would that make it more enticing?" She looked up for a minute.  "Why, yes.  Yes, it would." So we're still negotating.  If I work fifteen hours a week, it saves them nearly $300 a month on my salary. Plus it saves them benefits - I don't qualify for any health benefits if I work less than twenty hours a week.  She's going to talk to me sometime next week - again, she's got some numbers to crunch.  I think I'll help out by crunching a few numbers myself for her.   I think this might work, folks.  It might be only a two-month or three-month commitment at the beginning, but I think she's going to say yes. This was the first time I had done a hard negotiation for a job.  For anything.  And let me tell you something -  I have never felt more confident, or more powerful, in a meeting ever.  I had other backup options in case she rejected it outright.  I had numbers.  I had a proposal.  I was holding all the cards.  And I was fully prepared for any possibility.  I have come so far since being fired from that machine shop six years ago, the final straw that drove me into non-profit work.  I have come from begging for jobs to literally writing my own job description.  But I think the main reason I felt so strong in there is that I knew I was doing the right thing.  If this didn't work, I would find another way to take care of Ollie at home.  I am supremely confident that I can find other work to keep our bills paid if this doesn't happen.  And I know that I'm supposed to do this, so now all that remains is working out the terms.  But the confidence came from  - how do I say this?  I was doing what was right.  I felt righteous.  That's it.  For once, I didn't feel desperate at all.  I felt righteous.  7:53:45 AM     Speak up!  []

	Sunday, July 17, 2005

The Proposal - Part One I've decided to try to talk my current employers into letting me stay on as a part-time employee in one capacity or another. Truth is I'm a little worried about contracting myself out to non-profits.  It's unstable work, and it might not get money rolling in right away.  So I hit my supervisor with my proposal (Free tip #1:  always have a proposal!) on Friday.  The proposal was a multi-part proposal: I'll work from home twenty hours a week as a employee.  (Advantage:  I can still get half-time benefits and other benefits.  Plus, I'll be able to list these guys as an employer for a longer period of time.) I'll work from home twenty hours a week as a contract employee.  (Advantage:  I'd get paid more.  I have a time contract with dates, so I have a guaranteed job for a period of time.  Disadvantages:  I'm in charge of my own taxes.  No health care benefits.  I enter the wilderness known as self-employment.  Apparently, I'd even have to apply for a business license.) I'll help out part-time until you hire my replacement.  (This would only be for a month or two, but it'll help with income unti I can get more work contracting.) Surprise - she didn't freak out and run out of the room screaming.  She actually seemed to react positively to the idea.  I started listing the tasks that I could do from home, and she even started adding to the list.  She really warmed to it quickly. The biggest problem is that we're due to hire a couple of new employees soon, and they'd love to have the admin support for them when they come on board.  But so far, my administrative support for our first new employee has been pretty basic.  Order new computer and desk for him.  Make sure they arrive.  Make phone calls to get his DSL line set up.  I can do that from home.  If I'm working part-time, they'll probably need another admin person to be in the office 30 or 40 hours a week.  But their budget has just changed drastically, so I think they can afford to hire someone.  Besides, when they hired me to be the "admin assistant," they had just reposted the position with a pay hike of $6,000 a year.  We both knew that I was overqualified for an admin job.  If they cut my salary (and residual benefits) in half, change my job description, and hire someone at their original pay range, they won't be far off from my full-time salary.  Plus they'll gain money, because I'll be working specifically on fundraising and expanding their membership. My biggest advantage is that I've proven my worth to them.  I've helped the office run more smoothly.   I've helped clean up their databases, and thrown a bunch of good ideas.  I think that they'll be willing to work with me to keep me around.   After all, half-time me is better than nothing.  Right?  I feel like my supervisor was my biggest hurdle.  If I have her on my side, we can collectively get the executive director to agree.  But if she wasn't on my side, I was sunk.  So we'll see how it goes on Monday.   Wish me luck, folks.  I may be wrong, but I've got a feeling that this just might work.  5:36:39 PM     Speak up!  []

	Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Free Mojtaba and Arash I have a blog.  (The BBC. by the way, has defined "blog" nicely.  Quoth the Beeb, "Blogs are free sites through which people publish thoughts and opinions."  They're so smart.) Anyway, I have this blog where I post my opinions and thoughts.  I rant and rave about our President, complain about my workplace, and voice controversial and unpopular opinions.  I have also worked as a professional organizer, helped to organize protests and various types of civil disobedience, and voiced unpopular opinions about elected officials.  Sometimes, I've voiced these opinions directly to their faces, and sometimes, I've done this on television or in print.  As much as I bitch about the current resident of the White House, he will not arrest me for saying anything about him.  (Well, I could say certain things and get arrested, but I'm not going to say them, cause I'm not stupid.)  He will not incarcerate me without trial.  He will not have me killed for using this blog. I just finished reading "The Plot Against America" by Philip Roth, and was surprised how comforting it was.  As bad and horrible and evil as Bush is - and he certainly is all of those things  - we will survive him.  We have a healthy and vibrant democracy, with millions of people who will fight for our freedom.  I know he's bad, but we have the ACLU, EPIC, Media Matters, and hundreds of other noble groups that fight for our rights.  We will not go willingly into fascism.  And as bad as Bush is, we will survive him and take our country back. I'm not supporting the idea that Iran is an evil state, or that they deserved to be bombed or invaded or attacked or their leaders beheaded.  But free speech is free speech.  Bloggers or reporters should not be arrested for speaking out.  Free Mojtaba and Arash. 6:12:27 PM     Speak up!  []

House Cleaning Three-day weekends are the best.  (I'm trying not to be jealous of my wife, who gets the whole week off.  It's her mid-spring break.  Or mid-winter.  Or sub-mid-post-mid-solstice break.  I get them all confused.) I spent a good amount of time cleaning out my categories yesterday.  I moved all of my posts about my work into "the Movement," so hopefully, you all can actually find them as a separate category.  (As always, Radio is being a little finicky about updating my list of categories.  So you can just use this link to see the new work.  As I was doing this, I realize I haven't posted about the new job in a while.  There's a good reason:  there's nothing to report!  Honest, folks, I'm just working a straight forty a week as an admin assistant, and it's boring and ordinary and just what I wanted.  I order supplies.  I've straightened out file cabinets and book shelves.   I ordered some highlighters last week. Boring is good.  I like boring.  Boring is so so so much better than working crazy hours, or working in an organization on the way to ruin.  We had a board meeting last week, and aside from the board members not showing up (we had eight attendees out of 21) they're fine.  They're actually interested in our organization and its work, and care about its funding.  They seem fairly attentive.  My last board, if you recall, was tragically inept and distant, which is why they're still on the verge of collapse.  Oh, and as for my last organization, the news is not good.  I mentioned before that they were on the verge of getting a huge deus ex machina gift.  Well, deus is not playing anymore - the prospective gifter changed their mind about giving this organization a six-figure gift, and now they're back on life support.  I feel bad about it, but more than that, I feel lucky that I escaped into a good job. 7:06:39 AM     Speak up!  []

	Monday, December 13, 2004

Endings, Beginnings, and Truffles On Friday, I went to work for the last time at the organization I'm calling FISH. I came into work at 8, and plowed away at loose ends and unfinished work until about 6:30. At noon, a board member came to take me out to lunch. I had the same discussion I've had with everyone else - the board needs people with real experience in fundraising, they need to expand their membership, people need to stop talking and start doing something... You know, the usual. No matter how many times I say it, I really don't think they get it. It's like trying to help a child get out of a rushing river, only you can't save them because they keep crying "I'm scared!" You just want to yell, "I know you're scared. Now get over it so I can help you!!" They're not getting over it. They're too scared to move, and they're the wrong people, and the whole thing may very well crash and burn. Or they could get their very own deus ex machina. It might happen. There are significant rumors that a prospective deus is making moves. But I've said it before - these people are so naive that if they get their asses saved by one more unexpected big donation, they'll think that everything they did was just dandy, and so why change anything? "We must be doing something right - we're not dead yet." Not Dead Yet is not a good indicator of success. And today, I started work at the Organization Which Has Not Yet Earned an Acronym. (OWHNYEA is not an acronym. It looks like Welsh, though. Is it Welsh?) It was a deeply uneventful day - with one exception. All day, I had this amazing feeling of relief. I'm not writing budgets. I'm not setting policy decisions. I'm not doing anything of earthshattering significance. Of course, I'm doing important work. But the big decisions will be made by other people, and for once, I'm relieved to just be ... working. By the way, I'm not quite done with the FISH yet. I forgot a couple of things that I promised I'd do, and I might drop by one evening to finish them up. They're very simple things, but I don't want to feel like I gave anything less than a full effort to wrap up my work there. I'm also going to drop off an Xmas card and a box of Trader Joe's truffles. They could all use a little holiday cheer right now. 8:06:44 PM     Speak up!  []