What’s up with the EWG workload?
My role as co-chair of the EWG, and all other leadership positions, are up for election in February. Email me if you’re interested.
Thing is, nobody should take on the role I have. I really want to skip the self-pity, so I’ll just say this: I wanted to quit many times this year, and the next person taking this role will quit. There is no question in my mind that this role, leading this working group, is untenable. Sticking with the status quo is going to fail — it’ll either produce an EWG that fails to deliver what it should to CDSA, or one that cycles through leadership every few months.
I believe we need to rewrite the roles in the group and drastically reduce the workload, but truthfully I don’t think that will be enough.
The workload is just too much. I don’t really know how to describe it fully. I never tracked how many hours I put into it, and I’m no good at estimating that, but one reason I don’t think we can just reassign duties is that so many of the duties the co-chairs do require lots of coordination with other working groups, the Secretary and the EC. When one person does them, it’s a ton of work. When multiple people try to do them, it would only mean they’d have to communicate and coordinate that much more with each other. In other words, a ton of work.
Add in some other factors and I have come to the conclusion that we need to dissolve the EWG and reform it in the branches. I explore that idea here.
In February when I took the role, Ada openly told Robin and I that they wouldn’t have the time to act as co-chair. They declined the position initially, and Robin and I had to ask them to reconsider because I needed a co-chair. They were always open about how much time they’d be able to give EWG. Anyway the problem I’m describing here is much larger than just “ask the other co-chair to take more on.” So much of what we have had to do requires one person to carry a job through a dozen different tasks, and trying to split it up would not have worked.
I also know I’m not the best organizer. I don’t have every skill you’d want in working group leadership. Still, it seems like a bad idea to hold our breath hoping for leadership to appear that has every skill you’d want in working group leadership. Average leaders and inexperienced leaders should be able to take this job, and right now I don’t think they can, and I don’t believe we can mold the job to make it doable.
A big emphasis in Chicago DSA is developing good organizers, and this is definitely not the model to follow if we want to do that. I think of the people who’ve shown energy and commitment in EWG this year, and I can guarantee all of them would burn out if they tried to take this role. Do not burn out more organizers, please.