Gah! Can't anyone think around here?

I just need an audience that won’t judge me for my outright bitchiness. 

So these grad students! They made up this survey for the community. It is 20 questions long and asks really generic questions, to a point where it is not actually useful. I think between being inexperienced, is part of their flaw, but it is also the construction of the research project.

Here is the dumbest part. Their projects are set up to start with the community proposal on what we wanted researched. That’s good. But then they spent the last semester deciding what data to use – that is great except they didn’t do the literature review first to know what kind of data to look at.  So, now, in this survey, because they don’t understand how poverty actually shows itself, they pulled a bunch of stuff that is limited. For example, they look at income and consumption utility shut offs -  which is great at measuring trends, but because they got caught up in the past data when they created their survey, they’ve only identified emergency service providers that treat poverty, and left off service providers that prevent poverty. The goal we gave them is to create a way to measure regularly and predict outcomes based on prevention.

But the way they’ve selected survey participants is opportunistic and because they don’t have a system for deciding who should be a part of a regular survey which means it isn’t replicable. If it isn’t replicable, it isn’t sustainable, and it isn’t useful.

And they need to start next week if they are going to meet their deadlines. Suddenly, I’m the bureaucracy. It feels weird to be on this side of things.

This has me so pissed, off I’m going for a walk.

Maybe once I’ve calmed down I can think of how to logically argue with my boss why we need to slow down and make this a teaching moment for the students.

Fear

I'm feeling kind of down on myself tonight. I went to a fantastic event with amazing people and ideas shared. It was the Women's Giving Circle annual dinner where they talked about their work in the past year raising and granting money to local non-profits who do amazing work. But I'm always a downer so there were two things that annoyed me. While I loved so much of the presentation, the bad stuff is sticking more.

The first thing that was super annoying was when one of the board members of the Multi-cultural Family Center referred to Africa as a country. I know the kid was 17, but that was super lame. Second, I don't believe in art therapy. I understand healing from trauma, I understand coming to terms with emotions, and I understand the value of DOING SOMETHING, but I don't think arts and crafts really is that deep. I have never been shown empirical evidence that it works better than any other therapy. That annoyance stuck with me.

I also got scared. My co-worker did this amazing presentation about inspired giving. I very much related to her ideas. I too am too often obsessed with finding that perfect thing I am good at. But really we each are perfect at being who we are. But sometimes who we are isn't so clear. I know I'm passionate, but I am also impatient with systems change. I'm not good at math (accounting), I'm not good at writing, and I'm not good at influencing people. I have spent the last year of my life doing something I am passionate about, but I can't tell if I'm good at it or just doing it as well as anyone else is.

I'm also a bit jealous. I've not done international work, which I would like to do. My co-workers have. But I don't see any way that this will be fiscally possible for me anytime soon. I could have done it in college, but I was too busy working and being involved locally. I say I want to go get a masters degree, but I don't write well, and the cost is prohibitive. I'm scared I took this job here and now I'm economically stuck - all because I'm too idealist and not practical enough. I have learned how valuable public policy is because I keep bumping up into it when I work on things at my job, however this point brings me back to my option of using electoral politics (something I know and am pretty good at) back as an option as a job. I need to have leaders elected who will be friendly to the policy changes I would like to see. Then I look at the jobs and they are either in places I may not want to live, or if I took one of them, would have to put grad school off. Why can't elections be in August and be over before school starts? That would make the choices easier.

I would feel selfish if I got on a campaign, especially at a regional director position, and then have to leave in August. I would have to withhold this goal from them to even get a position - which is like lying to them or a candidate.

I just don't know what I want to do. I'm also afraid if I do find a job that I do get I learn to hate. I don't want to do something too repetitive, but I'm not a good enough writer to get one of the jobs where I could move around more in the topics I research and want to help work on.

I come back to it is all fear. I fear the unknown. I fear not being good enough. I fear being insolvent. I fear making a bad decision.

One thing I also know I am good at, from stories my parent tell me, is that I make the right decision. But right now I don't know what that decision is, and I"m scared.

Tis' the season, I guess.

The Point of Privilege

I start with "I love my job." I get to think about structural poverty more than probably anyone else in the city. But at the same time, I often get frustrated because I see systems of discrimination and systems that propel income inequality and because I see them and can't stop them, I feel I am sometimes allowing for the system that I don't agree with.
   An example is the idea of an internship academy. I love the idea that younger people are being taught how to make the most of their internship experience and given some leadership skills to help them excel. However, the way in which these students are selected is by referral and good grades. This means the system is set up to reward those who already are succeeding, instead of helping those who need more attention to get to a similar position. I don't like this at all. With something as simple as a change in a selection policy, we could be doing better. But the argument is that it is easier to do it this way, and policy change demands debate which can potentially dissolve a group that could do more good by staying solvent. It is easier to stay the same than increase the impact.

I am assisting with a group who has a substantial amount of money to spend that could go either way. At this time, there is great opportunity if we keep our eye on the goal economic equity. Economic equity is not the same as economic equality, but can work towards the same goals concurrently. To minimize the economic inequality of a region makes the place more solvent and makes it easier for economic development to have the goal of making all people's lives better, not just the few at the top by supplying labor.

I keep thinking back to the idea of fairness. "The doctrine of fairness asks: If there must be some or even considerable inequality in society, why not seek a society where problems such as poverty are distributed randomly, rather than being disproportionately located in specific populations such as African Americans and women?" The doctrine of fairness means that there is equality of opportunity. It does not mean we shouldn't really be working for equality, but it is a first goal that policy should think toward if they are going to make measurable progress.

As the program has this available privilege of spending money (which really the whole foundation model does) their responsibility should be taken even more seriously. If we are not the ones to model responsible behavior, who is? Who will use their privilege for good if us.

When I see internal policies or behaviors that consent to inequality - whether framed as just bad customer service or racism - I become even more impassioned and frustrated when I have no outlet for changing things. I can't change an individual's behavior, but I have learned from some empirical studies that if you make the right behavior easier than the bad one, people will chose to be good. Usually. So that is our task. To make the right decision easy and the wrong decisions hard through systems. If I have accomplished anything this last year, I hope that a legacy of "right" is what I leave behind.

Writing to right

I've had a bad day. Well, not really. I've been in a bad mood despite having a reasonably good day. I get excited reading through all the jobs I am qualified for and would enjoy doing, but I am too tired at the end of the day to apply for any of them. My resume is in order, but writing the cover letter, and tweeking the resume for each job description to highlight why I would be good at that job is very tiring. I am not scared I won't have a job come November. I know I have rent covered for Nov, and December, but I don't know what I am going to be doing for Christmas because traveling back to Idaho may not be on my agenda since I may be moving across the country, either north, south, east or west. Being in the midwest means there are only more directions I could go. Deciding what jobs I could really be happy to do is also hard. Lots of non-profits have great missions I agree with, but few really speak to me. And which ones have the option for graduate school? It is all mixed up in my head as to my future, but I'm sure I'm going to make the right choice. Being young, with no major bills, having everything that fits in my car, and being free to move wherever opportunity may take me is just as scary as having no options. I wish I could just find the right job in Wisconsin. That would be the easiest choice. Milwaukee or Madison is where I need to go. Minneapolis is up there too, but I doubt I fit the Humphrey Institute as well as I would like. I want to go where I can be an anthropologist, where I can use my thinking, but have clear enough job duties that I can accomplish something tangible. My job now is good work, but it isn't always easy to tell what a good day is. In other jobs, with clearer objectives, it is so much easier.

Eating grapes has made me have a sugar high. Or I may be allergic to them and this is my body going into some sort of shock. Just writing this makes me feel better. Not an insightful blog post, but just something so I don't have to look at the last story about robots anymore.