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Top Comments: Showing Up [1]
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Date: 2023-07-05
I have to be a little vague about this one, as there are details about my workplace that I can’t get into, But something good happened last week, that reminded me of the importance of showing up.
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Recently the management at my agency announced a change that my colleagues and I all thought was a Very Bad Idea. Bad enough that a few of us got together at lunch to discuss it, and the consensus was that somebody should present our concerns to management. No one (including me) particularly wanted to be that someone, but I finally volunteered to write an email. I sent it around to a bunch of the other workers, asking if anyone else wanted to add their name. Time was of the essence, so I asked them to get back to me by the end of the workday — just 3 hours away.
In those 3 hours, 17 people signed on.
At 5:00, I sent it to a few of the higher-ups at the agency. An hour later, there was a mass email from the assistant director, asking us to set aside time for a Zoom meeting later that week.
Ironically, I almost didn’t get into the Zoom meeting. I was delayed by some technical struggles with my computer, and when I finally got into Zoom, it wouldn’t let me in because the meeting was “at capacity.”
I joined another worker at her computer, just in time to hear the assistant director explain that they’d add a second meeting later because of all the people who couldn’t get in. “I’ve never had a meeting before where over 100 people showed up.” Followed by the announcement that the change under discussion would be “paused” while the agency considered alternatives.
Afterward, I was struck by how close I’d come to not bothering to contact management. I’m used to pessimism about them actually hearing our concerns, and I don’t imagine that my email was the only reason for their willingness to reconsider. But I’m reminded of how (for instance) a few zealots managed to gut the school curriculum in Florida and elsewhere, because they showed up and made some noise. We never know how much we can accomplish, until we show up & make some noise.
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