War Stories: A Cautionary Tale

Yesterday, I met with a woman who runs a tutoring business with her mother. She was asking me about my previous job, managing a tutoring and mentoring program for a large national charity that she has a very high opinion of, and does a lot of work to support. The question was essentially framed as "how amazing was it to work there!?" I did my best to smile and be bright and cheerful about it, and I hope I succeeded. But I have a lot of difficulty answering questions about that job when they come up, because frankly, almost a year later, I'm still not sure what to say about it.

I do believe that the experiences we gave young people at that organization were by and large positive, and that their perception of the program was not influenced by the stuff that happened behind the scenes. I guess it's like school in that way. Did you ever know, growing up, which teachers were on what terms with administration, or fighting with the union, or having trouble with their department head? Probably not, because that stuff doesn't come out in the classroom. I think the young people we worked with didn't see that kind of stuff come out in our programs, either. And they really were great programs.

I have no problem with what we provided for young people. But what I can't reconcile is what the organization lacked in providing for its staff, and the negative results of that -- burnout, bullying, disorganization, cliques, favoritism, lack of focus and poor leadership. And I can really see, in reflection as well as at the time, the role that 'war stories' played in ensuring that our group would not fully succeed.

I'm sure this is the case for many charities, as well as small businesses and probably even Fortune 500 companies: everyone wants to look back on their achievements with a sense of pride and purpose, and to impress one another with their fortitude and ingenuity. What more repulsive figure is there than the privileged kid who got to a high position by putting his hand out and just taking what was given to him, right? In other words, to make our successes seem more worthy, or authentic, or even morally superior in the eyes of those around us, we all have a tendency to emphasize the struggle. Stories of struggle and overcoming are powerful and make an impact. They show others what we are made of. They prove our worth, and demonstrate that we are not to be messed with. But what they can't do is provide real support to others who wish to follow in our footsteps. War stories help us feel good about ourselves, but they don't help others to do good.

When I started my job, I was in charge of developing a tutoring, mentoring and volunteer program for a new outpost of a wildly successful program which had proven itself to be effective in keeping at-risk students on track to get a good education. This program had been formed out of the blood, sweat and tears of a small group of committed educators, health practitioners and activists who believed in the power of community to effect change, and knew that education was they key to any and all positive changes they could bring about. In the years before they expanded, they worked together to capitalize on the strengths of their community, and grow their idea into a huge initiative that served thousands of young people and their families and transformed the culture of a neighbourhood. Our site was charged with the same task: scooping up the young people and families and supporting them through their secondary educations, giving them all the tools they needed for success, and developing a culture of positivity instead of despair in the community.

When I showed up to work in my first week, I was shown a promotional video made at the original site. And I was handed a thin sheaf of papers with some guidelines and benchmarks outlined, and a few ideas for developing and running programs. And that was about it. The thinking, officially, was that we would focus together on creating programs to respond to the unique needs of our own community. But in reality, we were hopelessly under resourced. We had eight full- and part-time staff sharing four desks in a hot, loud room. People would regularly come to work and find there was no computer to work at, or sometimes even a chair to sit on. We were driving distance from the community we were to serve, and from the buildings in which our programs would actually run...and many staff did not have cars. And the sheer volume of work we were expected to do meant that most of us had worked our full week's hours by Wednesday or Thursday.

So how did we do it? Well, as was expected of us, we 'got creative,' 'powered through it,' 'dedicated ourselves to the youth,' and lived, ate and breathed work. Well, especially when you care about the people your work serves, and hold yourself to any standards or have any kind of integrity, burnout comes quickly. Slams you, actually, but there is so much that you are reacting to every day that there is no opportunity to reflect, or even fully realize that you are burnt to a crisp, you're not yourself anymore, and you're not someone you're proud of. You can't keep it up, but you don't let yourself stop. You can't. The program is growing so quickly, you outgrow spaces as soon as you move into them. There isn't enough of anything, ever. And every year, more and more families, more and more staff, and more and more hours of programs are added, presumably to serve and serve and serve. And you are consistently hit with the realization that maybe there isn't a plan. And that the people in charge expect that you will just keep doing what you've always done: 'get creative,' 'power through it,' 'dedicate yourselves to the youth.' And -- live, eat and breathe work. At the risk of telling my own war stories here, we pulled it off. Sometimes just barely, but we never failed.

This kind of expectation -- that charity requires miracles, consistent full sacrifice of time and sanity, and that no matter what, you'll 'make it happen' is deeply flawed. It devalues and disrespects workers who come to their jobs with a genuine desire to help. It's lazy and self-serving when it comes from above: 'Why are you asking us for supplies? When we started our program, we had nothing but a pile of stolen Ikea golf pencils and a bunch of books that had been propping up the short legs of couches in the dingy basement we held tutoring in! Our tutors were illiterate, and half the time they were drunk, but they had heart! We had passion, and dammit, that made us the successes we are today! You should feel lucky that your software is only ten years out of date -- ours was twenty!"

Alright, Grandpa. I get it.

What stories like this really teach someone is that the person in charge hasn't learned from their experiences. They've forgotten how hard things really were for them -- I mean, it wasn't so bad, right? After all, they lived! They've neglected to recognize that not everything needs to be done the hard way in order to be good, valuable, respectable. That service should entail sacrifice and generosity, but not at the expense of valuing those who serve. You don't need to repeat every move that your forebears pulled in the trenches to demonstrate your commitment. That should not be expected, or required.

Nobody was expecting spa days at the Ritz when they applied to work there (well, maybe one woman was, but I digress). We all came to our positions ready to work hard, make sacrifices and be committed. But it would have been nice to have been spared the necessity of reliving every hardship, repeating every mistake and constantly struggling, just like those who came before us. Think of the things we could have done with enough space, time and money. If we'd been expected to be merely human.