Sorry folks, gotta vent. I’ll write about the bank thing, and reading email tomorrow, probably. Also the new podcast episode won’t play, and I can’t tell why, which is (as 3yo Tate would say “Fwustwayting.”
AGM Today. The short version: the thing that was attempted by a person who isn’t liked (but had a little groundswell anyway for one PART of what he was trying to do) was suddenly retracted *right* before the vote, thus rendering all the stress and craziness around it totally null and void.
The Long Version: Thanks for coming out. Thanks for suddenly making it enough about you (after telling us ALL ABOUT how it wasn’t personal at all) that you were willing to drop the whole matter when you didn’t think you could win any more. You talked yourself into a hole instead of just letting people decide for themselves whether or not they wanted to lend their vote to what you were trying to do, and then took away the chance for anyone to actually, y’know, VOTE on the MOTION by suddenly making yourself unable to be voted down. You didn’t want to lose, so you’d rather just not show up for the fight. Half of the people that might have voted for you later in the evening on the 2nd topic walked out the door shortly after you pulled the rug out from under them. I don’t blame them, and I feel sorry they didn’t feel heard. Again. Again.
Last year, at the AGM, I was one of the rabblerousers, and trouble-causers that you claim to be. I got nominated from the floor at the very last moment, was accepted by acclimation, and then picked up the fight Arwen had been fighting for the previous nine months. It was ugly, and I was being told I should quit, and that maybe I wasn’t doing it for the good of the society, and was being scolded for contacting the “higher-ups” in the Govt bodies to do something as rude as asking “can he/they/we do that?” But when the old Executive Director and Treasurer quit within a week of each other (after getting ito a full-on flamewar with me over Xmas), I like to think I had something to do with it. I like to think I made things uncomfortable for people who weren’t honouring our rental agreement (individual, or with the gov’t body that holds it). Make the people who were attempting to invade my privacy and break agreements because living where I live is “A privilege, not a right.”
So, way, to go, asshat. You actually did the *exact* opposite of what you claimed to be trying to do, so you’re either useless, or evil, and isn’t THAT what you were claiming you were trying to put an end to in the first place?
The fact that you were surprised you didn’t then get voted onto the board, that fact that you thought you had a chance, thought you had a hope, shows me how utterly disconnected from the tenancy and membership on the block you actually are. You stole the passion, the bravery, and the energy from the people who tried to make changes last year (and to people like myself and a few others on the board, who are still trying to make changes happen). It’s a tough fight, and we are often met with eye-rolling, deep sighs, and suggestions of mental instability.
What you’ve done over the last six months made all the dismissive actions seem totally justified.
You claim your eviction had to do with you “becoming political” last year.
I didn’t see you at the AGM last year. I don’t remember you talking to your neighbors about the attempted (and against rental agreement) increases in rent. You didn’t say ANYTHING until you got caught out on a basic tenet of rental housing, and they had you dead to rights, and then suddenly you wanted to hear what sorts of problems other tenants had.
A little late to the party, dude.
