Three-ish years ago, I volunteered with the social committee for our building. I did so because I knew I could help; that stuff is in my wheelhouse.
My first experiences were non-existent. I never got the emails about meeting days and times (which violates the bylaws for our HOA; everyone should be notified for every committee meeting with an agenda and access to minutes). Then, they did a call for volunteers, so I asked if I had done something wrong. All got rectified, and I did the next few flyers and upgraded a lot of the decor by adding much-needed color to our events.
Since I got involved, we have had a record-setting event and also scaled way up in the number of events we host. So, there is a lot of good happening.
When I joined the committee, we knew we would lose A, a long-time committee member who needed a break. Not long after that, our chair got “promoted” to the board, so she asked me to chair. At the end of my first year, J created a shit-ton of drama, but we got all that settled and she quit. Then, we lost Li (as a byproduct of that drama and some other stuff too). We also gained two and lost three more people to their own inability to attend any meetings (which isn’t an actual expectation, but they also no-show to everything). And none of that counts our Negative Nelly, Lu, who can’t even tolerate a positive thought (and is also on her way out because she’s moving). It’s been a rough ride.
For the drama and plenty of other reasons, I’ve nearly quit several times. The drama has been a lot. I retired to avoid this kind of shit. Mostly, I no longer trust a key player, La, that we can’t avoid and that is a detriment to our communication and marketing efforts. I’ve been waiting for this to pass, but that’s taking too long for me.
Meanwhile, drama queen J has started her own social group. She literally stole email addresses from the book club and a ton of our ideas that we listed in the surveys and is hosting those events. I’ll be fair here; she is mostly hosting stuff in small scale that would never work in large scale. It’s still a bitchy thing to do, though. What we can tell from all of this after-the-fact is that she was probably pissed that she was passed over for Social Chair, even though her party skills are so weak that she literally doesn’t know how table cloths work.
At the last event we attended (before traveling), I tried to explain to former chair and current member, D, why some people don’t come to events. They aren’t “in” the clique and feel left out. She believes that there is no clique. So I said, “That’s because you’re in it.” And the clique is obvious. It’s mostly a certain age group. And then they all whine, “why don’t the younger residents come to any of our events?”
Next, we got a building-wide email “from the board” that there is division among the EV owners and that it “won’t be tolerated” by the board. With no way to reply, I used La to shoot them a quick note that division is already happening. If it’s in the EV committee and the Social one, then it is systemic. I also asked La to ask them to put contact info in their emails. Her response was that all emails to be board need to go through her. No, they do not; La doesn’t live here or vote, but she is a self-proclaimed control freak. Anyway, they had D reply to me that only repeated what they said and didn’t address my comment at all. They don’t care about the social division because they are all in the “in” crowd. But now that some residents disagree with them, they are pissed it’s happening. Welcome to my world, EV committee. And all of that came with a giant dose of awful communication and gatekeeping with a failed attempt at gaslighting.
Since all this is giving me nightmares all the way across the pond. It’s time to get out. To anyone who happens to know about our blog, is reading this, and is wondering “is that me she’s talking about?” Yep, it probably is. I didn’t name names, but I didn’t hide it, either.
I did get sweet notes/offers from several committee members, including two that are mentioned here. I hold no grudges against anyone still on the committee. I also didn’t tell La. (I’m sure she knows by now. If she needs to reach me, she can contact someone else to contact me on her behalf.) I just don’t want to deal with bullshit anymore.
instead, I found a real one.
Aside from building stuff, we have had division in our alumni group for nearly a year. I recently got a condescending-AF email from C, who left the Brown Coats and went over to the Alliance. I have successfully ignored that email so far. …but boy-howdy was I tempted to snark at her and her traitor behavior.
I’m 50+ fuckin’ years old and retired. Why won’t this shit end?
And then, we got the C-word news about an adored family member who is having surgery in a few days, so I don’t have energy for this junior-high bullshit. (This entry was massively post-dated. The surgery got all the initial C. Next step is wait, test, and see if she also needs Chemo.)