Thoughts (not) on Writing - Day 13
So there are a couple things that I wanted to post about, not actually having anything to do with writing.
The first thing is that I've been reading a lot of the posts that have been flying around about OTW and AO3 and the upcoming OTW elections. I don't have a dog in this fight, I'm not a dues-paying member, the only players I know of are the BNFs, and I know them only by their fannish works and livejournal posts. I have absolutely no idea what the internal dynamics of the organization are, so I'm not going to comment on them specifically.
What I *will* say is that I've read a lot of comments about burnout, and not feeling supported, and lack of transparency which makes navigating the hierarchy in order to get things done a huge headache, and people getting to the point where trying to speak up and implement changes has gotten them burned and so they give up because it's not the worth the trouble and trying to talk to the higher-ups is intimidating and stressful, and -
Wow, all I can say is that I know exactly how that feels. A lot of the work I've been doing in RL lately has been about running into walls, and grappling with a systemic, organization-wide lack of transparency, and trying to make my voice heard even while realizing that I'm most likely to be met with indifference and confusion as to why I'm so upset (oh, and for an extra-special helping of happiness, yes, I've had one guy in particular give me the 'oh wow that's interesting what you want to do but please don't be so negative in your tone and I'll just call some other people to see what they can do for you, wait until I get back to you' - uh, look, I know the people you're going to talk to just as well as you do, what the hell is this? Why are you talking to me like I'm a ten-year-old girl?)
Working in an environment like that is *maddening,* and intensely frustrating. I knew when I started on these projects that I would have to be able to recognize my own limits, and that if things got out of hand then I had to be ready to walk away and wash my hands of the whole thing - and it hasn't gotten to that point yet, but it still *has* been so, so frustrating at times. And that's not even in an actively toxic or malicious environment - what I'm dealing with is the fact that where I am, there's very little centralized deliberation over how things are run, which results in lots of different departments doing things their own special way, things getting done at the last minute, confusion over what exactly the rules and procedures are and how things should be done, etc. - seriously, it's enough to make me want to tear my hair out. This lack of transparency isn't a malicious thing, I know it isn't - it's more the fact that setting up the infrastructure and putting in the effort to *be* transparent about rules/procedures/information is hard work, and if the higher-ups aren't interested in putting in that work, then there really is very little that can be done.
I do recognize, though, that a lot of this is the normal baggage that comes along with any large organization/bureaucracy; thinking back, I honestly don't think I've ever been part of a large organization that was transparent in its affairs to all members of the organization and the public, where the higher-ups had a good, coherent grasp on what their underlings were working on, where there were centralized deliberations on how things should be done and why they should be done that way. Do such organizations exist? Ugh, if they do, can I go work at them?
I think that one of the most frustrating things for me is that when I give my feedback or my opinion and ask why things are the way they are, the higher-ups don't seem to have a good, well-thought out answer about here, this is why the things are the way they are. Look, I don't expect things to run perfectly; I get that sometimes time or money or personnel limitations means that we have to cut corners, but if that's the case then just say that, don't give me bullshit about this is the way things have always been done before. Don't give me bullshit about how you're handling problems on a case-by-case basis, or about how the system has worked well enough for everybody else.
Seriously, if you *can* make something better, then why don't you? Why not? If you already have to do something, then why not go all in and make it as good as you can on a systemic basis, for everything? I literally don't understand the 'good enough' mentality when there are sufficient resources. If there aren't sufficient resources, then fine, but even then you should be prioritizing improvements and you should make it clear to the general population what projects *are* being worked on and your progress on them, otherwise people will continue to bitch about the other things that you *aren't* working on because they don't know that you know that it's a problem, they don't know why you're not working on it.
... yeah, today's post had nothing to do with writing, but it was good to put a few of my thoughts on these matters down on 'paper' anyways; goodness knows that I've been complaining to my RL friends ad nauseum about all of this.