Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Does your community clean all the common areas yourselves?

[Eris Weaver (eris]

Sharon wrote:
                > I feel the same way but we do have people who like to
clean and like to
                > clean together.
                <snip>
                > When we did our first round on what jobs people would like
to do
                <snip>
                > As the round proceeded, one woman, a lawyer for the ACLU,
was delighted to
                > finally find something she thought she could contribute ?
she loved
                > cleaning bathrooms. A clean toilet was her pride. Who
could guess that?
                <snip> 
                > It all depends on your members and what they want to DYI,
or as one of our
                > members says, Yankee-Do.

Ah, here is a key difference in how Sharon's community approaches work and
how mine does. We seem to be very stuck in the model of "everyone must take
turns doing everything." Not EVERYthing, exactly - different committees
obviously do different things and some jobs require specific skills - but
when it comes to physical labor, we expect everyone who is physically able
to participate. We've never asked people "what job do you WANT to do?"

Eris Weaver
FrogSong, cohousing in Cotati, CA