interviewed by alienor

[cellio]

1. What qualities have you, as a peer, tried to bring to your local barony?

I've tried to teach/encourage some core values, including:

• Principle matters, even when it's unpopular or inconvenient. The ends don't justify the means.
• Never make law where policy will suffice; never make policy where custom will suffice.
• Authenticity and fun are not opposites.
• Say what you mean; mean what you say.

I've also tried to encourage exploration -- of new arts, new activities, new roles, whatever. Most of the stuff that I've done in the SCA and not sucked at, I had no idea I'd be any good at. Passion will make up for an initial lack of skill, but you've got to overcome that "I'm no good at this" feeling.

Mind, that I've tried to lead in these ways does not mean I've been successful. I'll continue that thought in the answer to the next question.

2. How have those things changed as you became less active?

I've backed way off on pushing, especially in my local group. It's become clear that most people in the SCA do not agree with me on some core principles, and it gets tiring. (If I thought there were better chances of success...) Sometimes it's easier to walk away. I don't like that, but there it is. I've found other fulfilling endeavors, so that makes it easier to walk away instead of trying (again) to fix problems.

There's the big stuff, mostly involving the corporation, but there's also smaller stuff. I'll give one example. About a year and a half ago, our baronial officers accidentally published some policies that had never been enacted. By those policies, these newly-published items were not policy even though someone said so. I pointed out the problem and suggested that they publish a correction in the next issue of the newsletter. It was a mistake; I understand how that can happen. They would not do this, however; they said that once published it was policy, even though published policy required certain things about notification and voting that had not happened. They instead voted at the next meeting to "revise" the policy back to what it had been. The whole thing was tainted, and I would have taken the complaint up the chain if the outcome had been anything other than to end up with the original text as policy. We got the right outcome but for the wrong reason, and I decided to let it be.

Ok, fast forward a year and change. A few months ago they again published policies, and the incorrect text was back. Not only that, but the problem policies concerned an election that was about to commence. This seems like the sort of thing you'd want to fix, to keep your election clean. I wrote to the relevant officers. And they essentially told me "too bad"; in the meantime kingdom policy had changed so our original policy wouldn't have been valid anyway, so they didn't see the harm. If the kingdom says "you must do X" and local policy now (incorrectly) says "you must do X", you have to do X anyway so it doesn't matter how the baronial policy got that way. Or so they reasoned.

It does matter, for the practical reason that kingdom policy could change but we'd still have it on the books, and for the principled reason that you follow your own policies.

Thirteen years ago the corporation violated its own published bylaws, and after complaints up the chain failed to effect change (the board of directors endorsed this violation), I and a group of like-minded people sued them to force compliance. (It was important; it involved financial misfeasance.) This was, by the way, the only time I have ever sued anyone; it's not something I did lightly. I took a lot of flack for it (also got some admirers), but it was the right thing to do. We won. There was pain involved, and some ill will continues to this day.

I should try to force my local group to do the right thing. I won't do it now because the election is in progress and disrupting it would hurt innocent bystanders. There was a small window in which I could have forced the issue. Maybe I should have. But I didn't.

There have been other issues; that's merely the most recent. The pattern goes like this: I try to do the right thing, I'm thwarted, my overall opinion of the group (or its officers) goes down, that makes it easier to step a little farther away, and that in turn makes it easier to step aside instead of trying to persuade them to do the right thing. Vicious.

I should point out that there are good aspects of my local group; I haven't left. But I am certrainly less willing to give give give than I used to be; these days I give more focus to "if it isn't fun, don't do it".

3. How do you deal with the heat at Pennsic?

In camp: tall light-colored structures, cross breezes, shade, and drinking lots of water. Out and about: wear a light-colored hat or turban, be least active during the hottest part of the day (my fighting days are over), wear clothes that breathe (lots of linen). Walk steadily but not hastily.

Sometimes I take a mid-afternoon shower.

Addenda: Canvas sunshades are more comfortable to sit under than plastic ones (even though you might think it doesn't make a difference if there aren't walls). And, a trick I learned from my camp-mates: when you drain the cold water (that was previously ice) out of the coolers, drain into a basin, then soak your feet.

4. Why is the idea of working for a government contractor so distasteful for you?

The "government contractor" part is smaller than the "humongous company" part, actually. (This is the second time I've worked for a large company. The other one wasn't a government contractor, but I didn't like it either.)

My pre-acquisition company was a government contractor, too, but it felt very different. Small companies are much better able to treat individuals as individuals. Large companies are much more likely to have unbendable rules, restrictive job classifications, etc. They're less flexible, less agile. And sometimes the rules seem stupid. (For instance, 11.5 of my 23 years of experience "don't count" because I don't have a BS in CS, a 4-year degree. I can see docking me up to 4 years for that, but half my professional experience? My immediate management have been very good at running interference for some of this stuff, but they shouldn't have to.)

Government contracting does add some hassles, though. Here's an example from today: I just got a new computer. They were unable to track down the original proof of purchase (from 2001) for one of the software packages I need, so we need to order a new one (I'm not allowed to move the installation). That part's fine if a little wasteful. Problem: it's no longer being produced. There is no legal way for me to get this software at this point. (I'm not allowed to go to eBay or the like.) So my productivity takes a bit of a ding because I no longer have access to that tool. (I'm not allowed to keep the old machine around for stuff like that.) Is it a major problem? No, they didn't take away something like emacs or Cygwin or IntelliJ. But it's a minor irritant, and those can add up over time.

Working on government contracts raises issues of software ownership that make it harder to work for people other than the government. That's why most government contractors are only government contractors. We have non-government customers, and I see our business people thrash over this and our engineers get confused about what we're allowed to work on and where we're allowed to bill it. It's not a big issue for me personally, but it affects people around me and that leaks out. It's a mood-affector more than a bottom-line affector.

Government contracting isn't automatically a lose for me. (I'm still there, after all.) But it sure does introduce more incomprehensible bureaucracy, and I find that tiring.

5. What has been the biggest surprise about converting to Judiasm?

Almost nothing or almost everything, depending on granularity. :-) I'll talk about a few broad areas here.

One surprise is the speed and degree to which I've become a (real or perceived) leader. For all that I can get frustrated sometimes about not being able to do more in certain areas, I am doing way more than I ever thought I'd be doing at a communal level. I've been a committee chair and synagogue board member, I'm a trained lay leader (by HUC), I study privately with my rabbi, I lead a weekday minyan, and I've been solicited multiple times to become a rabbi. All in less than eight years.

Another surprise is the near-uniformity of politics on a breadth of issues. I grew up in the Roman Catholic church; you were expected to oppose abortion and the death penalty, and maybe you went on a bus to Washington every January to protest Roe v. Wade, but that was pretty much the extent of it in my experience. (I never went on the buses. It was known that I didn't oppose abortion, and that seemed to be ok socially.) In my (liberal) community there is a strong presumption that you pretty much endorse the Democratic party platform, and there's a lot of activism on lots of issues. I've gotten flack for not signing petitions I don't agree with. It's a little odd, especially in a community that otherwise values individual autonomy.

There are more, but I've been sitting on this set of questions too long as it is.

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Written, years ago, by jducoeur