Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Basic and derived needs

[Kay Argyle (argyle]

> If people are feeling like they're working too much, then they should take
> responsibility for their own actions.  No one is making them work so hard.

I started telling myself, If I don't do it nobody will -- and that's fine.

But there are jobs that are NOT okay if nobody does them.  If the community
treasurer gets fed up and quits paying the bills, and the common house gets
seized for unpaid back taxes, that is pretty serious.

To use a less extreme (and real-life) example:  While prioritizing community
tasks into essential, important, nice, and not a community job, weeding
receives a score of "nice."  A person who has been spending many hours every
week weeding decides in that case she isn't going to do it anymore.  Nobody
takes up the slack, and the community gets very weedy.  Prospective buyers
are turned off because the place looks run-down.

One member ended up in the ER after interrupting a car break-in -- nobody
has ever gotten around to seeing to it that the broken lamp by the parking
lot got fixed, or mounting the security cameras one member keeps talking
about.

Before you dismiss the community's hardest workers as being the problem,
take a good long look at what they are doing and what are the consequences
if it doesn't get done.

Kay

_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L