On reflection
I don’t want to flog a dead horse, so this’ll be the last I have to say on the matter. But I’ve had some time to reflect, and I feel that what I have to say needs to be said and this is the best medium to publish it in (especially as the post in question got 102 hits yesterday alone). Apologies in advance for any sarcasm or cynicism, but I’m a bit pissed off! It’s a bit long, but if you’ve been following the blog for the last week (or heard about what’s going down) I’d encourage you to read - there’s an “executive summary” at the bottom for you busy types…
There’s an organisation I’m a member of. I won’t say its name or link to it, but it’s involved in providing first aid cover at events. You see, that’s one of my favourite hobbies - providing first aid cover.
Most of the time, I love working with said organisation. On the whole, being a member is a fantastic experience. But as with all things that big, there are inherent problems. These range from the minor (”our shirts should be green not white“) to the more major (”people from here are better than people fro there“, “people of this age are better from people of that age”) to the frankly dangerous (”we’re so much better than the people from there that we’re going to use this bit of equipment, and this driving technique, and make these types of diagnoses”). The problem is exaserbated because those involved are all volunteers. There’s no real heirarchy like in a large corporation, instead everyone fights for power for reasons that even they themselves barely understand. People seem to crave the rank, the positions of importance, from “just because I can” to “I’ve failed in where I want to go in my life, but I’m damned well going to boss someone around”. There are those up there who deserve the rank, deserve their place running the organisation. This is because they care about the organisation, and want to make those changes. Unfortunately, their lives are blighted by the power mad or the “it wasn’t like this in my day” brigade.
The organisation also has a great strength in fixing these problems - again, we’re all volunteers. And when volunteers spot these kind of things going tits-up, then often they have the time and the love of the organisation to attempt to fix these. Some even see it, and they should, that they have a duty to those involved to try and change things for the better. If you care for the organisation, give a lot of time and effort to it then you want to see it succeed. I’ve always tried to help the organisation and fix things that I see going wrong since I first got heavily involved. I was (and still am, for that matter) passionate about rolling out the new corporate identity (something I feel very strongly about as it’s the one thing that will most affect the public’s perception of us, and having a coherent, modern and professional identity is very important. It’s not perfect, but it’s a damn sight better than it used to be). I’m now involved in sorting out some training issues, because that’s where I thought I could help out (the issue here is just lack of time available to the training people given the reams of paperwork and faff that have to go into each course, so any help that can be offered is gratefully received!). I try to get involved in regional issues if I feel I can help or if I spot something going pear-shaped. In the same way that you’d be expected to pull someone up for a clinical issue, you should as a volunteer for the organisation feel that it’s also your job to pull someone up for a management issue, or a training issue, or whatever.
The problem is that the majority of those who have the power within the organisation don’t take kindly to this. Why? Is it because they faught so hard to get this power that they worry someone might come and take it from them? Is it that they love this feeling of being in charge so much? I honestly don’t know. What I have come to realise, from bitter experience, is that the higher you get up the chain of command the harder it becomes to change things, the harder it is to make it clear that yes, there are clever people within the organisation with ideas and initiative, and maybe listening to them will make the whole thing work a bit better. Lets take the case of Matt Dinnery. When the new corporate identity was released, we were provided (after a while) with plugins for Word and Powerpoint to allow us to use it on letterheads, presentations, etc. Matt realised, as several others did, that not everyone in the world uses Windows, or can afford Microsoft Word. So he used some initiative, and made templates in OpenDocument Format. For this he was kicked out of the organisation. Pretty reasonable response for providing a much needed service, don’t you think?
I’ve had issues with the organisation. Things like proprietary software usage rank low on my scale of annoyance, but I still try and make people notice the problems, and I’m grateful to those like Matt who actually enable a linux user like myself to comply with the CI. I’ve also had issues with trainers and the way they train courses - I’ve gone straight to these people, we’ve chatted, and they’ve changed some things and as a result of the dialogue I’ve realised some things. This works because they’re, more or less, my peers within the organisation. My main annoyance is with operational issues (things going wrong on duties), and that’s where it gets messy.
The problem is that these operational issues are almost always due to the action of someone “above” me. They often happen on “out of county” work too, so not under the command of people within my own region of the organisation. If you have a worry, and feel that you should express it, for any reason from the professional appearance of the organisation or the sanity of your colleagues through to patient safety, as I said earlier you have a duty to report it. This is a arduous and horribly drawn out task. On multiple occasions I have done, as have several of my confrères (great word!) have tried too.
We’ve tried writing a letter as a group. We’ve tried writing individual letters. We’ve tried phoning and speaking to those “in charge”. In all these cases, nothing has happened. It seems like the people who could actually make a difference don’t want to listen, and they’re shielded by a bunch of people who might want to make a difference but can’t due to those above them, or are too busy trying to keep their position near the top of the pile to care. What’s the solution?
I use this blog to write about things that I like, things that annoy me, and just about anything that I fancy. This includes my hobbies. People who share my interests in life read this blog. So I thought - why not post some of the issues I’m having here! They’re comments that need to be said, that people need to take notice of, and if my peers can read them out here then perhaps they’ll see that it’s not just them, perhaps they’ll feel that they can take up the fight too and that those at the top will have no option but to respond. To that end, I wrote a long blog post about a recent event - one that I gave up a whole day of my free time and £16 for, and one that went horribly horribly wrong from a making-volunteers-happy perspective. This is something that needs fixing, because without the influx of volunteers that event could never go ahead. I even came up with what I thought the problem is (and what a lot of other people do), and perhaps even started on the road to some solutions.
To some extent, it had the intended effect. Colleagues saw it, they posted replies, it started some good dialogue going both in the comments thread and by email. It even prompted someone to forward it on to someone with a higher rank, someone who might be able to take note of the issues raised and do something about them.
Immediately, I was told to take the post down.
Why is this? Because it gives the public a bad impression of us? Perhaps, but then how many members of the public who care read this blog? I think the answer is “out of sight, out of mind”. We can ignore a letter, lose it on a desk somewhere, fob them off with an “I’m sorry”. But a post of the internet? Where like-minded people can find it? Where people can comment on it? That’s just down right dangerous. People will talk to each other. People will think. And people will realise that things need changing. And the more people get together, the harder it’s going to be to sweep the issue under the carpet.
A lot of it comes down to the age problem - we’re “too young” at mid-twenties to know anything of the organisation, apparently. Us young upstarts don’t know the organisation like it used to be, how those in charge would like it to be. And if any of us show initiative, that obviously means we want to take over, and those in charge don’t like feeling like there may be someone better for the job than them out there. But old guard, you have to realise a simple point:
We are the future members. We are the future users of the service. We know what people nowadays think of the organisation, and what they want of it. We can see what is broken, what needs to be modernised, and how the organisation needs to evolve to survive in this modern day. And we’re prepared to fight for the organisation to be everything it should be.
Telling me to remove a blog post doesn’t work - people have already seen it, commented on it (both online and individually). Removing it actually does worse for your credibility:
“How many people find a deleted post more telling than post explaining things from a personal perspective?” (Mark)
The thing is, blogs are the perfect medium for this kind of discussion. Now people are talking, agreeing, and it’s making them think about what is wrong and what they can do about it. Kind of my original aim, but it’s now taken off better than I could have hoped. The reason is that I do actually care, quite strongly, about making the organisation work. I can’t emphasise this enough - I don’t write this kind of thing to just have a go, I do it for a reason.
On a side note, why can’t I blog about this organisation? I blog about the good and the bad with regards to films, food, music - why can’t I do the same with my hobbies? If I said “the organisation is ace” I’d be commended, yet if I say “this is something wrong with the organisation, this is my opinion why, this is how I think it can be changed” I’m a very naughty boy. Strange.
“Funny, I don’t recall the ‘As a member, we may instruct you to terminate your right to free speech’ term in the policies…” (Matt)
I think that’s all I have to say. Just so it’s all covered, here’s a summary:
- In general, I, like a lot of people, enjoy being part of this organisation. It’s as a whole friendly, fun, and useful
- However, as with any other large volunteer organisation, there are some major issues
- The majority of these issues are political ones, bought about by people who have power who shouldn’t who are frightened by change
- The young people at the base are the future of the organisation. They’re the people most in touch with the public, especially the future service users. They’re the people who can see the pros and cons of the organisation as it is, and who can see how to change it
- Unfortunately, these young people are being ignored. Luckily we‘re pigheaded enough like the organisation enough that we will fight for it to evolve for the better
- So please, communicate with us
I just want to do what I can to fix the problems that will prevent this organisation being all it should be. If anyone involved would like to speak to me about this, please please please leave a comment or email me.
