This is you, going "MAKE IT STOP!"

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LP, just fold yourself up into a little pocket of Youness. You know you can do it. Just fold up space-time and your astral projection using a happy thought or memory (I'll give you one, the blue-purple crystals of Enceladus during Saturnrise) and ...rest. The king of your own little world made of you. A walnut of infinite space. You can return to the point of time you left by re-retconing your preconceived position in the Prime Material Plane. Good luck!

Forget those people! Get on a bus and come to NYC. We'll show you a good time :D

Sounds like you need a day of burritos and beer.

ooooooooooh NYC. Big lights, big city. Whores I can afford.

Seriously, people - let me say right here and now that if there has ever been a time up in this hizzy where my ego has gotten obnoxious, or I shouted somebody down, or ran my mouth about some stupid thing (Starbucks, amirite?), let me say now that I apologize from my most contrite and humble self.

I've spent my entire day in what feels like absorbing the most banal, solipsistic, "it's all about me and you should do what I say!" nonsense from folks who could live better than that. And these are the same people I'm making myself available for!

Bleargh. Again, thanks for listening. I want to curl up in the fins of a dolphin and hear happy cooing echolocation noises from safe at the bottom of the viewing tank.

I still think you are better suited to be a lobbyist than working the front lines.

Oh, I just realized your description could very well be that of a lobbyist.

Ardiril - my "description"? You really shouldn't pay much mind to what you see in Post Offices, man.

Your description: "My altruism is biting back on me, hard. I feel like my life has become a sinkhole of need and miscommunication this week, and it's only fucking Monday afternoon. Having immense trouble keeping up with the numerous egos, agendas, back-and-forths and who knows what whens of everything I do around town."

That could just as easily apply to volunteers or lobbyists. Or, just about anyone underpaid and working a shithole job.

Side note: Post Offices? Did you know that sending a letter Registered Mail will double the time it takes to arrive?

Post Offices = lame joke about my "description" being on their Wanted Poster lists. Do they even still do that at Post Offices, anymore?

Just working through my karma today is all. Fucking hate it.

LP, should I make a pocket dimension Just For You? It can be small, but it can haz pillows and drugs from Tau Ceti. You haven't LIVED til you've heard *real Martian jazz on Cetian Neurofux

I think I just LIVED in my pants.

and it's really funny how the Whelk knows me as LP now.

Viva Lipstick Pianthes!

just ride it out til the next wave.

Man the Polynesians kept their secrets. They got all over the stars years before we began banging rocks together. No wonder they're so "eh, so" about our anthill battles.

I'm just going to play the LP backwards, to see what comes out.

It takes a long time to learn to say NO. It really does, especially when you want to help and you want to do the work. We all have limits and it can take a while to find them, override the helping instinct and do what YOU need to do.

I was going to say it sounds like you're doing too much.

Miko, of course, beat me to it and said it better.

No no no Deborah (I miss you btw - remember the meetup at Elysian back all dem years ago - 2005????) you're right here. Doesn't matter how it was said or by whom.

What I'm learning right now with all of my much-trumpeted-on-Metachat/filter-lately volunteerism is that the most vexing thing is when you start not only volunteering, but picking up the slack for people who don't communicate well, or at all.

Literally, my entire day past 9am was all about making sure I stepped in for other people who didn't make their involvement known for a group of people who would be directly affected by their participation.

You know what I mean here, right? The last-minute "yeah, I'll be there" type who keeps everyone on tenterhooks until they make their grand entrance, but everything revolves around that moment?

Now, here's the crappy part: as much as today was an exercise in exhaustion, missed opportunities, and wasted effort, the reason I'm so contrite in this thread is that I've done that exact same thing to people in the past. There's no high ground for me, here, just sad warbling about how fried I am dealing with it.

So, yeah, karma's a bitch, man.

Anyway - let's flip the script. Talk to me about your personal experiences with assuming leadership for a situation when everyone else around you was more than content to drop the ball/say or do nothing/insert-your-motivational-speaker trope here.

What makes a leader?
What is "owning a situation?"
What is "putting yourself out there even though you could conceivably say NO?"
What do we get out of this extended responsibility? What is driving any of us to react to a group and step up out of the murk of passivity and say, "FUCK IT Y'ALL - IF NO ONE ELSE, I'LL SHOW UP DAMMIT."

the answer is doing shit.

And don't be a martyr.

Fuck pithy quotes. The universe runs on contradictions.

But I like the kind with Extra Pith, The Whelk. The cartons are bright orange and make me feel manly and cool.

Pith is a substance that is found in vascular plants. It consists of soft, spongy parenchyma cells, and is located in the center of the stem in eudicots (both herbaceous and woody) and in the center of the roots in monocts. It is encircled by a ring of xylem (woody tissue), and outside that, a ring of phloem (bark tissue). In some plants the pith is solid, but for most it is soft. A few plants, e.g. walnut, have distinctive chambered pith with numerous short cavities.

The word comes from the Old English word piþa, meaning substance, akin to Middle Dutch pit, meaning the pit of a fruit.


Do not eat the pith. It brings meaning.

I think we've all learned something here today.

(pause) BIG, BRIGHT, WELCOMING SMILE INTO CAMERA 3

Then: the vodka, oh god sweet jesus the vodka.

STRIKE THE SET!

What makes a true leader is someone who's not acting out of ego in a desperate, losing situation in order to come across as the hero.

(I think I have the correct number of negatives in that sentence. I hope so, anyway.)

Don't throw yourself in front of the oncoming bus after everyone else has sensibly stepped out of the way. Do what you can with what you have in ways that will let you retain your sanity.

Cuz the thing is, if you're trying to lead a group from which everyone has defected, then who, exactly, are you leading? And if you're trying to be a leader for a cause that no one finds worth sacrificing their time, then your first task as a leader is to get followers on board, not to take everything on yourself -- because, again, how is that leading?

What is driving any of us to react to a group and step up out of the murk of passivity and say, "FUCK IT Y'ALL - IF NO ONE ELSE, I'LL SHOW UP DAMMIT."

I like to think that when I show up, things just work better for me in the long run, because investing in the success of one event means I probably still have a job later. Maybe that's obnoxious, but isn't it more obnoxious when everyone else just decides to abandon their responsibilities to the group and hope someone else picks up the slack?

Example: I work in a pretty cutthroat industry in a smallish town that's oversaturated with competitors, and we're the most expensive place in town in the middle of a recession in an already not-so-affluent place. We need to be as promotional as we can.

This past weekend we had a really brief on-stage spot at an outdoor event and the organizers showed up with no prizes/swag for audience participants, no script, no table/booth with additional info, inappropriate attire, stage fright, and no idea when we'd be on. We looked insanely unprofessional the first time we were on, and it bugged me, because I could see a line of people over at Organizations X, Y, and Z's tables connecting potential clients with info, and really, isn't that the sound of my job I hear flushing down the tubes?

So before we went on again for a second slot later, I tried to talk through with the group how our on-stage bit might go down, we did pretty much what I brought up, and it worked really well - the crowd of people watching laughed, applauded, and asked us afterward for info about what our organization does. It was the best we could pull out of a bad situation.

Did it frustrate me that everyone assumed everyone else was doing all the prep and that they could just show up? HELLS YES. But did it work out OK in the end? Yes.

Mdonley and Occhiblu nail it. Both sides of the same situation and both equally true and smart. I love this thread.

It takes a long time to learn to say NO. It really does, especially when you want to help and you want to do the work. We all have limits and it can take a while to find them, override the helping instinct and do what YOU need to do.

This. Saying "no" also shows that you value your own time and effort. You can't expend effort infinitely; make it count. Let people know that you can't do thing A, thing B, and thing C all together; you can do one. Or none. None is fine, sometimes.

I'm using the general "you" here, not the specific "you"; this is an much a reminder to myself as to anyone else.

The Specific You should come an hour north soon, and I'll get you loaded. Bring yer special lady friend.

What makes a true leader is someone who's not acting out of ego in a desperate, losing situation in order to come across as the hero.

Well put and true.

The Specific You should come an hour north soon, and I'll get you loaded. Bring yer special lady friend.

Hm....maybe a week or so from Friday? LT could use the getaway...

Hm....maybe a week or so from Friday? LT could use the getaway...

That would be, what, the weekend of 17th-19th? Looks good to me! I'll take this to email.

Wanna make it a meetup or keep it private?

Ardiril, I'm going to let LT make that decision, but if you're up for the drive, I'd love to meet you* anytime**!

The Portland area members tend to be up for meet-ups at the drop of a hat; in the summer, we often have vacationing members from elsewhere, too!

*As above, that extends to Special Lady Friend, too. Heck yeah!

**Uh, anytime except the first two weeks in July: The Fella and I are getting married next month, and we'll have family visiting for the first half of the month, at least.

Works for me!

Come one, come all - it's been ages since I've attended a proper meetup. Love to hang with you Ardiril.

Pick a date. My calendar is completely open.

Yay! Meet-up!

While we're hammering out the dates, let me correct my error above. I was wrong about the dates:

That weekend is the 19th, 20th, and 21st. Sunday the 21st is Father's Day, which does not affect my schedule, but might affect y'all's.

And I'm up for something on a weekday rather than that weekend if you prefer; it would mean out-of-towners faced lighter traffic and found easier parking, at any rate. (P.S. - the train to Portland is great.)

I'M JEALOUS. There is way too much awesome going to that meetup.

Though I was hanging with Goshling on Monday, so I'm pretty lucky too... :)

Dammit, dammit, dammit. America, why must you be so big? Glad you're getting a meetup-break from the stress, though, my dear LT. Don't forget to breathe.