Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: shared work agreements in cohousing communities

[Tree Bressen (tree]

Hi,

> Thanks so much! Next question is : what do you do about the folks who do 
> not even do a minimum? Rachael

I'd say the basic answer is that we talk about it with the person, one on 
one or in a meeting.  That's about the only recourse most communities have.

However, it's also the case being the type of community we are has some 
advantages over cohousing.  My household is very selective about who we 
take in, we are clear with people up front what the requirements are, and 
our cultural norms support our agreements.  If someone skips even one house 
meeting, you can be sure another resident is going to talk with them about 
it (unless the person was out of town).  We eat together 5 nights a week 
and everyone cooks one night a week--when people are depending on you to 
put a meal out on the table you are unlikely not to do it!  And it's an 
easy way to appreciate each other, i always remember that these people are 
feeding me 4 nights a week.

Saoirse wrote:

>Aye, there's the rub. If one person is doing an average of 20 hours (per
> month) and another is doing less than 1 hour (per month), that's a
> circumstance that could lead to worry and discontent.

Yes.  I don't personally mind doing 2x as much as the lowest contributor, 
but 3x was too much for me, at least after the past year or two.

> It is a real-life reality. If the comm'ty understands this and agrees to it,
> no problem. What happens is that some things that fall through the cracks
> are of primary importance to some people and very little importance to
> others. A difference in values. One person says we have to repair the cracks
> in the stucco. Another person says we have to produce a professional-style
> newsletter to build understanding of one another.

Yes, i agree that this happens.

> > Recently i committed to limiting my hours of community work to less than 10
> > per week.  I'd say our average here is about 8 hours/week, and the lowest
> > contributor probably does about 5.  (I live in a 9-person urban group house
> > where we share 5 dinners per week, it's not cohousing.)  Previously i'd
> > been doing more like 15 hours/week, and i got burned out.  My
> > community-mates have been supportive of my new commitment.  The one thing
> > they insisted on is that i continue to attend our weekly house meetings,
> > which for me as a process junkie was a great affirmation that i am living
> > in the right place!
>
> What is absolutely stunning in this example is the amount of time the
> "lowest" contributor put in -- 5 hours per week!!

Remember that a lot depends on what you count.  In this example, i was 
counting 2.25 hours a week to cook and clean up for one dinner, 2 hours for 
house meeting, and 45 min. of other chores like cleaning a common bathroom 
or doing our house's work hours at the food co-op downtown.

As i am currently tracking my work in order to keep my new <10 hour 
commitment, i am trying to count *everything* i do that is directly related 
to living here:  house meetings, core group meetings, gardening/yard work, 
cleaning common spaces, cook/clean, assisting on others' dinner clean 
shifts (we encourage extra people to jump in so that the clean-up goes fast 
and easy, but this is voluntary), extra kitchen tidying that i tend to do 
every morning when i come in for breakfast, monthly work parties, extra 
tidying around the house, dealing with ex-members' mail, staying in touch 
with our 20 lenders, other core group tasks (my current list includes 
finding a nonprofit to be our fiscal sponsor for donations; finding cheaper 
insurance coverage; posting our bylaws and a description of our community 
revolving loan fund onto our website); meetings with my ex-partner (and his 
current girlfriend) that we set up to help us cope with living together; 
any other major processing i need to do with my housemates; and any other 
special projects that come up, such as a month ago when our phone wiring 
went on the fritz and i tracked down the problem and fixed it.

Of course that kind of list would never be agreed to by a community 
outlining a work policy.  But since my new agreement is mainly with myself, 
i get to decide what to include, and i'm including it all.  I will say it's 
been wonderfully freeing the past month choosing to do less.  I do worry 
that we're not having core group meetings quite often enough now, but we 
worked so hard together last year, we're entitled to a break.

> We struggled to come up
> with a "minimum" of 4 hours per month. The range in our community is quite
> broad (from about 55-60 hours per month from the garden guy to an hour or
> two every other month from our high-finance entrepreneur). In the past year,
> we have agreed to "pay in lieu of work" for those who prefer this option.
> It's really been a difficult and sometimes hurtful discussion.

I want to emphasize that every community i know of--and i've been to about 
80--has struggled with work systems and how to get what needs to get done, 
done, while living in appreciation rather than resentment, keeping everyone 
feeling connected and not burning anyone out.  It's just not easy, not in 
our current society anyway.  So whatever the outcome in any particular 
community, i honor your struggle to figure this stuff out, to discern a 
path forward.

Peace,

--Tree



-----------------------------------------------

Tree Bressen
1680 Walnut St.
Eugene, OR 97403
(541) 484-1156
tree [at] ic.org
http://www.treegroup.info