Why I resigned from AAR, LLC.
I've told this in person, in bits in pieces, to a lot of people, and posted a bit onto a couple Flipside lists, but I don't know if I ever put down the full story, and I feel like clarifying where I stand on things, especially in light of some of the drama going down right now.
The entire reason I left was that I wasn't having enough fun anymore.
Obviously, that begs the question "Why not?" What changed?
For one thing, a lot of the novelty had worn off. When I first started, it was really fun to learn how things worked behind the scenes, what are all the different parts that go into making Flipside happen. The LLC doesn't *do* all of it, but they are expected to keep track of most all of it. The stuff that the LLC does do - deal with landowners and insurance agents and other people outside the community, was really fascinating at first, too. But at some point, the shine wore off that, and it just didn't get me motivated.
The changing line-up was also less fun than it was at the start. Despite all the inherent controversies, I don't really think that this group is significantly worse at LLC-ing than any of the previous groups. They make different mistakes that upset different people, but a much bigger issue is that this wasn't just my hobby, it was my primary social activity.
That's pretty significant. Lots of people have speculated that maybe I'm too busy with my kids to do the LLC. That's not really the case. But it *is* the case that I'm too busy to spend any significant amount of time doing something that's not eminently enjoyable. If I had been doing something like this many years ago, before I had kids, I might have stuck with it longer, because I would have other drinking buddies. But the LLC was my drinking buddies.
This is a little bit awkward, knowing that all the current and former LLC members are likely to read this. I'm not trying to make any comment on anyone's social skills or LLC-ing skills. It's just who is a better fit for me to hang out with, who was I having more fun with. My first year, I'd go drinking every Monday with Pat, George, and Rodney, and our conversations mostly revolved around this festival we were trying to let happen. My last year, I'd go to meetings every Monday, and we'd have a few beers.
Again, I'm not casting aspersions on anyone or their drinking styles or meeting styles. On the contrary, I think that as the event has changed and grown, different styles of people are appropriate on the board. A more process-oriented board simply seems appropriate for a larger, more complicated event. And this was reflected in the choices that the previous board's made in choosing new members.
I have very little truck with people that want to relive previous years by trying to stifle the natural growth of the event, nor with people that think that less organization is necessarily a better solution to every problem. At the same time, I do acknowledge that there may come a time when Flipside becomes an event I don't want to attend.
It is the case that I've had musical differences with the other members of the board. We have a broad range of opinions on different topics, and I tended to be the most "hands off" of the whole bunch, though at first I was one of the more "hands on" members. And maybe as that changes it makes the festival poorer or maybe it doesn't. I still counsel them to take a more hands-off approach when they can, but they are still pretty hands-off when compared to most other events.
As far as the "putting up with all the bullshit" from the community, that was always out there, and was a minor factor in making the LLC less fun. One thing that happened over the years, as the old guard stepped down and new folks took their place, is that the newer people had much less of a cult of personality protecting them, especially amongst the volunteers and leads and old-timers and movers and shakers.
There was always a lot of jeering from the peanut gallery. Ill-informed people lobbing grenades about "you guys should change this" and various random accusations ranging from incompetent to sinister. But early on, the cast and crew were very supportive. As more of the old guard stepped down, and the newer folks came on, the cast and crew were less certain of us. (I say "us" because I feel like I'm partially old guard and partially new, depending on who you talk to and what mood they're in. I think I have more of this cult of personality effect than the newest folks, but less than the oldest.)
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. We started drawing more and more criticism, some of it very intense, from surprisingly close quarters. I don't want to say that the criticism was entirely invalid, but the intensity of it and the personal nature of it was very new. It sprang largely from a lack of trust, which at the time I chalked up to "they have to get used to the new guys". At this point, though, I think it has less to do with that, and more to do with a reverent awe that the older members received from people in the know.
Even now, I'm expecting some attacks for not sharing this reverence for my drinking buddies. These guys did a lot for the event. There's no denying that. They had a different directorial style, which was better -in some ways- than the current crew. I think they deserve a lot of thanks, and a lot of benefit of the doubt when it comes time to wonder about the decisions they make. But I don't think they deserve so fantastically much more benefit of the doubt than the current crew.
Anyway, hearing from some random schmuck in Houston that we don't know what the hell we're doing is amusing and annoying in equal parts. Hearing some of my closest friends speculating that I am part of a group with sinister motives brings a lot less amusement with it.
I think some people perceived me as part of this new movement destroying the board, but I think more people perceived me as the last of the old guard, keeping it from going all to hell. I don't know how much truth there is in that, but I felt pressured to stay on, in order to preserve something philosophical that the newer members lacked. That may have been all my own perception, I don't know. As I said, we have had artistic differences.
Whatever the case, feeling pressured to remain on is one of the things that most quickly turned it around from being fun to being a chore.
And speaking of chores - I also feel a responsibility (not a chore) to lead by example. I like to say "Flipside is far too important to take seriously."
That's an amusing irony, but it's also very meaningful to me personally. The world of the future could be a world without "chores". Properly prepared, healthy food can taste as good as junk food. And the surest way to wreck Flipside, for yourself or for someone else, is to become too ego-invested in "success" over the specifics of the event, or even the event itself.
Volunteering - which includes the LLC - is supposed to be fun. If it's not, you should stop doing it.
That's not to say that one or two bad meetings means you should quit. If you've committed to being some volunteer lead or other for a certain time and it starts to turn sour, I'd rather you suck it up for a couple months and finish the job than just walk away. But don't sign up for it the next year. And don't do things that just make it worse in the meantime.
I'm surprised how little I miss it. Even at the very end of it, there was always a gratifying feeling of doing something right. Even when I'd make mistakes, I knew that I had signed up to something that hardly anyone else was even willing to do, and that others could be making worse mistakes. And, yeah, there was a bit of a cult of personality in there, at least in my own mind. I felt like I was important and special.
I had thought for awhile that I was deriving a lot of "meaning" from being on the LLC. What I realized at the end was that I was getting more "definition" from it than real "meaning". I had a specific role to play, and I could sum up my contributions pretty handily, at least to myself.
Part of my issue is that I had always felt a little self-conscious about my contributions to the event. I'm pretty good at making people laugh and telling weird stories and composing officious e-mails, but I feel like I'm not really able to do much else. My artistic skills are limited. I'm lazy. I had never been able to successfully motivate other people to join a project I conceived. So I intentionally kept my sights low and my contributions minimal.
I think this feeling contributed to feeling pressured to stay on the board. I know it contributed to my decision to join in the first place.
And I suppose getting over this feeling is part of why I'm not missing it as much. Maybe that's because I have this art project planned, and it seems like I have some very fun and capable people interested in helping make it happen.
I still want to have a meeting to get us all on the same page before I go public with any specifics, but I'm excited about it. Maybe I'm just happy to have a new group of potential drinking buddies.
The entire reason I left was that I wasn't having enough fun anymore.
Obviously, that begs the question "Why not?" What changed?
For one thing, a lot of the novelty had worn off. When I first started, it was really fun to learn how things worked behind the scenes, what are all the different parts that go into making Flipside happen. The LLC doesn't *do* all of it, but they are expected to keep track of most all of it. The stuff that the LLC does do - deal with landowners and insurance agents and other people outside the community, was really fascinating at first, too. But at some point, the shine wore off that, and it just didn't get me motivated.
The changing line-up was also less fun than it was at the start. Despite all the inherent controversies, I don't really think that this group is significantly worse at LLC-ing than any of the previous groups. They make different mistakes that upset different people, but a much bigger issue is that this wasn't just my hobby, it was my primary social activity.
That's pretty significant. Lots of people have speculated that maybe I'm too busy with my kids to do the LLC. That's not really the case. But it *is* the case that I'm too busy to spend any significant amount of time doing something that's not eminently enjoyable. If I had been doing something like this many years ago, before I had kids, I might have stuck with it longer, because I would have other drinking buddies. But the LLC was my drinking buddies.
This is a little bit awkward, knowing that all the current and former LLC members are likely to read this. I'm not trying to make any comment on anyone's social skills or LLC-ing skills. It's just who is a better fit for me to hang out with, who was I having more fun with. My first year, I'd go drinking every Monday with Pat, George, and Rodney, and our conversations mostly revolved around this festival we were trying to let happen. My last year, I'd go to meetings every Monday, and we'd have a few beers.
Again, I'm not casting aspersions on anyone or their drinking styles or meeting styles. On the contrary, I think that as the event has changed and grown, different styles of people are appropriate on the board. A more process-oriented board simply seems appropriate for a larger, more complicated event. And this was reflected in the choices that the previous board's made in choosing new members.
I have very little truck with people that want to relive previous years by trying to stifle the natural growth of the event, nor with people that think that less organization is necessarily a better solution to every problem. At the same time, I do acknowledge that there may come a time when Flipside becomes an event I don't want to attend.
It is the case that I've had musical differences with the other members of the board. We have a broad range of opinions on different topics, and I tended to be the most "hands off" of the whole bunch, though at first I was one of the more "hands on" members. And maybe as that changes it makes the festival poorer or maybe it doesn't. I still counsel them to take a more hands-off approach when they can, but they are still pretty hands-off when compared to most other events.
As far as the "putting up with all the bullshit" from the community, that was always out there, and was a minor factor in making the LLC less fun. One thing that happened over the years, as the old guard stepped down and new folks took their place, is that the newer people had much less of a cult of personality protecting them, especially amongst the volunteers and leads and old-timers and movers and shakers.
There was always a lot of jeering from the peanut gallery. Ill-informed people lobbing grenades about "you guys should change this" and various random accusations ranging from incompetent to sinister. But early on, the cast and crew were very supportive. As more of the old guard stepped down, and the newer folks came on, the cast and crew were less certain of us. (I say "us" because I feel like I'm partially old guard and partially new, depending on who you talk to and what mood they're in. I think I have more of this cult of personality effect than the newest folks, but less than the oldest.)
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. We started drawing more and more criticism, some of it very intense, from surprisingly close quarters. I don't want to say that the criticism was entirely invalid, but the intensity of it and the personal nature of it was very new. It sprang largely from a lack of trust, which at the time I chalked up to "they have to get used to the new guys". At this point, though, I think it has less to do with that, and more to do with a reverent awe that the older members received from people in the know.
Even now, I'm expecting some attacks for not sharing this reverence for my drinking buddies. These guys did a lot for the event. There's no denying that. They had a different directorial style, which was better -in some ways- than the current crew. I think they deserve a lot of thanks, and a lot of benefit of the doubt when it comes time to wonder about the decisions they make. But I don't think they deserve so fantastically much more benefit of the doubt than the current crew.
Anyway, hearing from some random schmuck in Houston that we don't know what the hell we're doing is amusing and annoying in equal parts. Hearing some of my closest friends speculating that I am part of a group with sinister motives brings a lot less amusement with it.
I think some people perceived me as part of this new movement destroying the board, but I think more people perceived me as the last of the old guard, keeping it from going all to hell. I don't know how much truth there is in that, but I felt pressured to stay on, in order to preserve something philosophical that the newer members lacked. That may have been all my own perception, I don't know. As I said, we have had artistic differences.
Whatever the case, feeling pressured to remain on is one of the things that most quickly turned it around from being fun to being a chore.
And speaking of chores - I also feel a responsibility (not a chore) to lead by example. I like to say "Flipside is far too important to take seriously."
That's an amusing irony, but it's also very meaningful to me personally. The world of the future could be a world without "chores". Properly prepared, healthy food can taste as good as junk food. And the surest way to wreck Flipside, for yourself or for someone else, is to become too ego-invested in "success" over the specifics of the event, or even the event itself.
Volunteering - which includes the LLC - is supposed to be fun. If it's not, you should stop doing it.
That's not to say that one or two bad meetings means you should quit. If you've committed to being some volunteer lead or other for a certain time and it starts to turn sour, I'd rather you suck it up for a couple months and finish the job than just walk away. But don't sign up for it the next year. And don't do things that just make it worse in the meantime.
I'm surprised how little I miss it. Even at the very end of it, there was always a gratifying feeling of doing something right. Even when I'd make mistakes, I knew that I had signed up to something that hardly anyone else was even willing to do, and that others could be making worse mistakes. And, yeah, there was a bit of a cult of personality in there, at least in my own mind. I felt like I was important and special.
I had thought for awhile that I was deriving a lot of "meaning" from being on the LLC. What I realized at the end was that I was getting more "definition" from it than real "meaning". I had a specific role to play, and I could sum up my contributions pretty handily, at least to myself.
Part of my issue is that I had always felt a little self-conscious about my contributions to the event. I'm pretty good at making people laugh and telling weird stories and composing officious e-mails, but I feel like I'm not really able to do much else. My artistic skills are limited. I'm lazy. I had never been able to successfully motivate other people to join a project I conceived. So I intentionally kept my sights low and my contributions minimal.
I think this feeling contributed to feeling pressured to stay on the board. I know it contributed to my decision to join in the first place.
And I suppose getting over this feeling is part of why I'm not missing it as much. Maybe that's because I have this art project planned, and it seems like I have some very fun and capable people interested in helping make it happen.
I still want to have a meeting to get us all on the same page before I go public with any specifics, but I'm excited about it. Maybe I'm just happy to have a new group of potential drinking buddies.