I will preface this to say that my blog is like my journal, a safe space for me to be honest. It is my space. I do not write to hurt anyone or make anything in particular happen, but to put my thoughts in order so I can do the self-care I need to do in my own life. You are free to disagree in your own journal. I'm not going to argue with anyone about what I say here. This is mostly addressed to my fellow members of the market and I am sure it will feel hurtful, but I need to say it.
Somewhere in my past I decided that honesty was my number one value and for decades have worked to live up to my own expectations of what seems simple but is decidedly not. I continually examine my thoughts and statements and actions and find myself complicit in mostly omissions and missed opportunities to rise to the level of truth I think we all need. I've made mistakes. I try to do better and ask forgiveness. I try to extend compassion as well. I can be a coward.
I spent much of my time at Holiday Market listening for the truth and dedicating myself to attempting to find a path to making that align with our reality. We've strayed too far from our values and we're in peril of losing them forever. The heart connections I reaffirmed there convinced me that whether or not I am a leader with a title, members still depend on me to help maintain those values and keep our basket from tipping over. They don't want me to just fade away.
When I say "our," I am referring to the large, decades strong, community of market members and families. We have continued to join together and find our love in action despite being very different, having disagreements, and sometimes spending years avoiding each other for both real and imaginary grievances. It can seem to be a loose organization of business owners joining just to make our livings in common space, but there is a deep and complex culture that lives within us and moves us forward. It is a fabric we are continually weaving or pulling threads out of, strengthening or destroying. We welcome hundreds of new people but we also try to keep all of the older ones with us. We don't discard people lightly, even when we know of their actual crimes like disregarding the honor system, or violating the Code of Conduct. We find ways to help them, support them through crises, or work around them. Although it is culturally toxic to call ourselves a family, we are literally that in many cases. We raised our kids together. We suffered our losses together and we are strongly bonded, even with new people.
This fall, despite being Volunteer of the Year, I abruptly pulled out of nearly all of my volunteer duties as an officer and supporter of the Market. I didn't explain myself, perhaps out of a lack of courage, but I told myself that I didn't want to undermine and destroy what was sort-of working through some difficult issues without clear solutions. I quit the Secretary position, gave up taking the Board minutes, and stopped doing many of the supportive actions I had kept in place for about twenty years, sometimes more. I have also removed myself as an admin on the Members page on Facebook, which now has four staff admins and no member admins. It was envisioned as a page for members, with little to no staff involvement. It's not that now.
As a contractor I knocked myself out to keep a solid public record for the present and for the future members so we could all find out what was going on, presented as neutrally as possible without inserting my opinions and interpretations. Things were always left out...specific details of our financial statements, for instance, due to not enough space for thorough explanations. My observations of financial trends such as overstaffing and inadequate tracking were expressed to members of the budget team but at least we were getting financial statements unlike the crisis when we went a year and a half without them at all. The toxic management we had after Kirsten left lied and hid the fact that they did not know how to do any of it and were actually stealing from us. I have proof. This isn't the first time this has happened in our history. Archives don't lie. We didn't prosecute and allowed them to resign with our support so they could have their second chances. Sadly one of them went on to destroy much of what was loved about another organization and the damage continues, so I personally regret giving that person another chance. I quit volunteering for that organization because I refuse to support him.
Here at Market I dove in and helped get those "managers" out and spent countless hours putting the pieces back together as I have many times in my long volunteer history. I've participated in firing at least four managers. Often I have had to be the spokesperson as Secretary or Board Chair, pushed forward because I was able to be direct and firm and represent the truth and the membership with integrity. There were times I stayed out of the process, as I was complicit or compromised by having supported the poor management or having taken a part in their actions, knowingly or not. I've been on hiring committees and been responsible for hiring inadequate managers. Hiring a manager for our complicated community of businesses is a very hard process. Most times we get no real candidates with the skills we need. We can't really afford the skills we need. Volunteer Board members and hiring committees often don't understand the job requirements or the type of personality and skills that will fit our membership's needs. Firing those managers was always the right decision and as hard as it was, it opened opportunities for improvement. We deserve great management. We have to keep trying to get it.
In more recent years, the rest of the volunteers have just stopped listening to me. They made a disastrous hiring decision after a search where the committee put forward a late-stage alcoholic man and a terrific manager who had some complicated connections in our community which were, in my view, unfairly judged. Instead of hiring for the actual job, they hired in a romantic way for some other organization which was not us. I had to step in to remove the toxic man and we were left adrift without the heart to do another search. Someone stepped up, did work hard, but this person had no management experience. We hired her. At the time I warned the Board we would pay for that decision, though again I had no vote, and no one wanted to listen to me. As Secretary I have never had a vote. I have had to try to use my knowledge of who we are and how we meet our needs to put out facts and our values and hope the people with votes understood. They stopped understanding, at least the majority of them, so gradually my contributions were ineffective and I began to worry about fraying the fabric more by trying to hold people to our values. I stopped speaking up and watched and listened, doubting my own instincts and gut feelings. I tried to fit myself to the current culture, but I failed. I had to walk away as I saw no safe and effective way to express disagreement.
Since that time I have witnessed the price of that decision. Over the last five years (and actually, longer) management individuals began to use tactics of manipulation, domination and control instead of consensus-seeking, compassionate communication, honesty, search for justice, and upholding our traditional values. Sure, the external world works that way and that made its way into our organization. I fought against it but sometimes felt ridiculous standing for such idealistic goals. It's not just one person, but a toxic combination of controlling people who now shape the culture. Members are being treated like naughty children instead of business professionals who have solid skills and who work unbelievably hard and dedicate themselves to the market's survival. For many of us, we depend on it literally. I cannot make my way to retirement without the market. I will literally become homeless and die if I cannot continue to make my living selling my crafts. When I broke my wrist and missed five weeks of income, I faced the fact that it could have been a career-ending accident and I was shaken. I was lucky and got my skills back, and gathered a little energy to recommit my heart.
I have always felt that no one could break the market but this combination of people might just have that power. Our members know what good management feels like. We recognize gaslighting, manipulation, and lack of transparency. We tend to show our disapproval in quiet ways, by refusing to volunteer, losing our commitment to show up every week for each other, and in this atmosphere, being afraid to speak up. We have seen that members who speak up are labeled complainers and excluded in various subtle ways. Their letters are not shared with the members. They are massaged and threatened and not promoted. Has anyone noticed that in the four years I have produced some pretty nice Market merchandise, at my own expense, my products have not once been promoted on social media? I sell thousands of dollars worth of it to an appreciative public, promoting the market all over the world. Last year and the year before I donated 50% of the sales of it back to the market. This year I gave that money to the Kareng fund and the many members who to my knowledge were struggling. Fifty or a hundred dollars out of nowhere let these members know how much they are valued despite how hard it has become for them to pay their fees and support the market for all of the reasons they struggle. I gave away over a thousand dollars. I am declaring this not for my glory but to say that this is a thousand dollars that I did not give to support the poor financial management of our organization. We are not supposed to depend on volunteer officers and committee members to keep us financially sound. That is in the job description of the professional manager we are supposed to hire to support us.
Staff is hired to support and serve members. The Board is elected to support and represent members and hold the organization together for the mutual benefit corporation. The Board is not supposed to protect the manager at the expense of members. Our staff is now fairly well paid. Yes their jobs are hard. We require their commitment. I was reminded on leaving last night that we are about to lay off much of our staff because too many were hired and we can't afford to keep them on all winter. That thousand dollars I previously donated to the market just hurt someone dedicated to serve me who was actually willing to stay past closing so I could take out one more load and be finished. (I couldn't do that to her.) My support of the market matters. Missing all of October put a hole in the budget, surprising me that one member's lack of support could have such a big impact. It put a big hole in mine too. I need the market.
What I observed is that taking away the November market, one of our only 33 selling days on the Park Blocks, had the effect of encouraging more members to take October and November off to work for Holiday Market. Eliminating the extra points for October and November and having only one week in November has killed off people's dedication to coming every week to make a market. The result of that will be that the community, disregarded for that second November week, will be feeling that they also don't need to go downtown. They can just go to Holiday Market. But at Holiday Market we pay no percentage. I used to make a solid $1000 in sales on that final week, even in the rain, because people came down to support us and enjoy the magic of the outdoor autumn markets. The decision to give staff a weekend off has rippled out in ways I spoke up about at the time. Y'all didn't listen to me. The original "survey" to make that decision was the most manipulative false choice I have ever seen from staff, and the promise was that it was for that year only. This was the third year. I tried.
Another subject: Forcing someone out of our community is an immensely serious act. Every participant is there by choice. Our community is independent and we will never be in service to a controlling, dominating management that requires compliance to rules that are not group agreements, are not discussed by the membership, and not made with the membership in mind. Accommodating one person at the expense of another is not how we do it. We find a way. We do it in public. Secret decisions have been made that are shocking in their callousness. Taking away someone's right to livelihood in our community is severe. It should be connected to an actual crime. There should be an appeal process. It should be done in the open.
I know too much. I quit because I was being asked to support decisions that were made without my knowledge and support, despite my officer position, and that went against my values and my understanding of the organizational values. I was shut out of participation in things I had passionately worked on for years. I built us a stellar understanding with the city during the design process for the Park Blocks. My role was to communicate with the members so they had the facts as soon as possible in the process and we could work as a group to make sure the city was knowledgeable about our needs and willing to meet them. I spent years on it. You can go see my 5-notebook archive of it in room 123. Everything is there. As I was shut out of the process I refused to continue that role since I didn't have a seat at the table, didn't get the facts, and didn't have a voice. I've been asked to continue, but I cannot.
I suffer from PTSD and am triggered for days when I am manipulated or gaslighted by a controlling person. I can sometimes handle one at a time. I cannot handle the number of them now in our power structure. I won't survive the adrenaline patterns. I was triggered for most of Holiday Market. I still am.
I have seen how our organization works enough times to know when the membership has turned. It has turned. Our members may not speak up, as they don't want to compromise their own ability to make their livings. They won't volunteer. If another fee increase is put in place to cover the overstaffing, they will take that out of their percentage or their donations of time and effort and they will do our own version of quiet quitting. It won't show much, but I believe it shows in members doing the minimum times to keep their spaces, not joining committees, complaining, and just staying silent for their own self-preservation. They "retire" or concentrate on the internet or find another way. Their loyalty depends on how they experience the handling of their issues. They know what's happening. We saw the three versions of the loading issue roll out, the first true one, and the second two blame games. We've seen enough badly communicated top-down decisions now, and the gaslighting of the board and members to support them. You cannot hide the truth at the market. You saw me pull my support. I thought it was the kindest thing to do, the most supportive, but I feel like a hypocrite.
It's time to admit that we made a bad hire and ask for a civil, cooperative resignation, redesign our hiring process and find a professional manager. I don't have the heart for this either. It's so much easier to pretend everything is fine. But that is not true. Our experience won't be just, and it won't be fair until we make this change. Staying on this course will be brutal. Please listen to the ones who are speaking up. Deal with the public grievance according to policy. Stop kicking people out. Do the right thing.
I can't bring myself to come to a Board meeting. I can't look most Board members in the eye right now. I am wounded and hurt for the people who suffered the real wounds. I cannot fix this one.
I'd like to enjoy the peace of the day and of the season. I have ambitious plans for the offseason including thousands of hours of working on the archives. Maybe dwelling in the past days of Market will restore my hope and heart. I guess we'll see. I know how much I still care.
