I Quit. Again.
October 09, 2009 By: almostgotit Category: UncategorizedI am no longer a neighborhood board member.
It is hard to know at this point whether I am really a “quitter” or if I have been unusually prone to getting myself into situations, lately, which eventually become untenable.
It’s also hard to know if I have accomplished enough in the end that it’s even been worth my trouble.
Volunteering as a board member and neighborhood communications person for the past few years has taken HOURS and mostly involves hearing complaints about pretty much everything, including pretty much everything I DO.
It also draws out all the crazies.
One of my neighbors decided to circulate a petition about his potholes the other homeowners hadn’t fixed for him (with our personal backhoes and private stashes of asphalt. Which he’d asked us for telepathically, apparently.). Half the neighbors on our block signed his petition without bothering to see what it was all about, rumors and hysteria expanded exponentially, and guess who had to fix THAT whole mess?
Another woman has been reporting various neighbors to the authorities while taking clandestine photos of a few of them. She also has taken to calling me regularly to accuse Mr. Pothole, her former best buddy, of vile felonies.
A woman up the hill, meanwhile, has tried variously to tear down our playground equipment, build a gazebo on top of the (often overflowing) sewage grate, and install funerial urns upon our entrance gate – none of these in consultation with anyone but her own infallible self.
Several folks have complained to me about the noise from a local nightclub, as if I owned it or something. Yes they’ve called the police about the noise – once, or maybe even twice, but nothing has changed. I’ve tried responding with encouraging stories, mainly about the overflowing sewage grate (thankfully still gazebo-less) which I had to call the city about over and over for several YEARS before it was fixed.
The neighbors don’t want to hear my stories, though — they want me to wave my magic wand and make things all BETTER, or barring a magic wand, to go ahead and spend the next several years making phone calls on THEIR BEHALF.
(Not. Going. To happen.)
I’ve even tried being direct, e.g.: if one feels strongly about potholes, noise, or proliferating felons, one might try taking some responsibility for these things one’s self. Which, for example, might entail calling the police a third or even (gasp) a FOURTH time when the noise wakes one’s babies up at 2 am on yet another Sunday morning.
Yet another couple went ballistic and accused us all of illicit weeding behind his garage, proceeded to drain our community fund dry, threaten a lawsuit, and then build a retaliatory fence on property that isn’t theirs.
Oh. My. Lord.
Is it ME?
I got another angry email from a neighbor this morning, so I told the neighborhood president I quit. Done. Finito. Moving ON.
For this kind of crap, at least my previous bosses PAID me!
October 9th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Good decision. This whole scene sounds like the plot for a sit-com. Hey…write a pilot–maybe you could sell it! You’ve got lots of material.
October 9th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
You should totally start a “neighbor horror stories” blog. Take submissions from the public at large as well.
October 10th, 2009 at 8:53 am
There’s a whole lotta love in that neighborhood; sounds like you made the right call. I like 2 Skye’s take; put up a wiki-neighborhood-horror-stories-blog and let the love stories blossom.
October 10th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Dear E,
So glad you quit! I’m proud of you for stepping down from your efforts to bring sanity to the crazies. Let’s just see what doors it will open now that you’ll have some free time for something else. Just stay away from my neighbor, Mr. Ritchie and his daughter, Mona. They don’t call the neighborhood association- they prefer calling THE LAW.
October 10th, 2009 at 10:30 am
I’ve heard this story from other neighborhood board members. The residents seem to think the board works for them, instead of with them. And the loudest complainers don’t want to be on the board themselves, or do anything themselves about issues, they just want to complain and have someone else do the work for them.
It’s not you; it’s the world of ungrateful people. Save your energy for doing something that makes a difference without making you feel bad. There are plenty of other ways to volunteer.
I agree with other posters that some of this material would make a fine short story or parts of a novel, and that you could use the time you used to spend at board meetings or dealing with issues to write the story!
October 10th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Hmmm sounds like being a vicar.
October 10th, 2009 at 11:21 am
A Neighborhood Horror Stories sit-com/novel/blog/wiki. Hmm, interesting thought! I won’t have any more stories for it now, though!
Guess I’ll have to ask Truevyne to tell me more about Mr R & Mona!
October 10th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Fr Dave: Yeah, I wondered. Like I said, at least such work should come with a stipend! (and yours should, no doubt, be a BIGGER stipend!)
October 10th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
It’s them.
October 13th, 2009 at 12:06 am
I have a friend who used to be a professional community manager — you know those fancy gated places. You should hear here stories. Actually, it sounds like you have, right there in your very own neighborhood. I don’t know how people do those things. Good move on your part, AGI!