Organizational Behavior

Sometimes people reassure me by telling me I’m a good person. But that feels like an accusation to me. I see the label “good person” as a lie told to justify bad behavior. You should like my abuse because I love you. I’m a good person so I would never hurt anyone.

Even beyond that the concept doesn’t work for me because I am afraid specifically that I will hurt people without knowing how. That I won’t be able to correctly predict when I will hurt people and will therefore be unable to avoid it. So being told I shouldn’t worry because I’m good or want good things or have good intentions reinforces the specific fear I have rather than addressing it.

And I have the same problem when “good” is used to tell me that this organization is acceptable, even though it’s very similar to many other organizations that do harmful things. It feels like an excuse and demand that I not care about the bad parts, rather than a way to demonstrate there aren’t bad parts.

I’m very afraid of power structures in general. It’s one of the reasons a job is hard for me. Or working with CASA. Or joining any clubs. I can see the concentration of power – in many organizations they are sort of proud of it, or may even wield it against you as part of joining. I fear the way power corrupts people who do join, and how I’d have to pretend to be okay with it if I did. This fear is fairly intense – I can be triggered by it, pushed right back to the way such power was used against me, and all the times I had to choose compliance or risk my survival. Unable to see past it because of my traumatic experiences.

This is complicated by the fact that I can’t see – often can’t have or don’t want – many of the human benefits of such an organization. I often don’t feel belonging ¹When I was young I remembered being told that gangs often provided belonging to people who couldn’t find it elsewhere. Which is at least partly true. But it didn’t help me think more kindly of gangs, it made me jealous of the opportunity. I was too isolated (or as I felt at the time, too broken) to even have some of the bad options for social … Continue reading when other people do. I rarely feel it at all in any circumstance and it’s certainly not enough to overcome my old fears when I do.

So it can feel like my only option is to like the specific work an organization does, if I hope to like it at all. That maybe I can tolerate the concentration of power if it’s wielded against something more terrible. I can handle this parents-rights room full of empty-nesters doing sometimes bad things to young people in dependency cases because I can use their power to do good when I’m assigned power. Maybe I can redirect that power toward soemthing useful if I can have enough influence within the organization. Maybe I can assume enough of the difficult and dangerous responsibilities to make the org do something better.

This of course unfullfilling, not to mention usually impossible. Being in charge of a club doesn’t make it less dangerous, it just means I’m more dangerous now that I’ve been empowered. It doesn’t make me less worried about the potential for bad things, it makes me more responsible for them. It puts me in charge of shit I don’t care about while still leaving me bound from really helping people because the scope of power I wield doesn’t match the need of the people I hope to help. I end up president of a club I sort of hate, often feeling like I’m pretending to fit in with the members, not really caring about the formal reason for the org existing.

I feel today like I’ve finally got a slightly different perspective. Not one that relieves my fear, but at least one that lets me see how other people might not themselves be so hurt by participating in organizations. I think I can see how you might be able to make the tradeoffs without feeling like you’re abandoning your humanity and faking your participation in the internal social aspects of the org. How you might be able to benefit and how the self-oppression might be tolerable – to some degree even desirable – even though it is still technically capricious demands for compliance.

I still don’t see how it could work for me. I’m not sure I want to, or that it could without me giving up some important parts of myself. But it’s easier for me to see how it works for you. Which makes me feel both profoundly alone, and also relieved that you aren’t being hurt in quite the way I imagine you are suffering. Makes me feel like I can be better at helping you, now that I can understand what you want, even if it reinforces the idea that I can only help people up from where I am not travel with them as they find soemthing better.

Uniforms, dress codes, and other forms of externally imposed costume are definitely something I see as exclusionary demands for compliance and never a source of connection. I know they can help people feel like they get to avoid a decision they are anxious about – how to dress correctly. I had my own uniform for this exact purpose for years, once I could afford a uniform. But selected for my purposes and discarded at any time I felt it worthwhile. And I know the act of complying provides protection against the fear of rejection – if you meet the standard it will keep people from judinging or excluding you. This part never works for me because technically meeting the standard can be hard for me ²And many other people. Dress requirements are super abilitist in many circumstances, and because they are part of a group compliance demand they are something where the burden of asking for accommodation is very high – too high to be safe for the people who need accommodations. Imagine that you couldn’t afford the uniform, or couldn’t for … Continue reading, but in theory I understand the comfort of voluntary conformity.

But if you can comply – if there isn’t a big barrier between you and what is being demanded – I can see why people might find it a relief from their own uncertainty, fear, and doubt. The idea that you’re doing the “right” thing – or at least a thing you believe might work – is powerful. I’m immune to this feeling because I am always convinced that I’m one typo away from hurting people, never satisfied that I’m keeping them safe enough, never sure that my compliance is enough to earn acceptance or safety or whatever I’m supposed to get through compliance. I wish the world didn’t make that a prerequisite to participation in so many things, so that I didn’t have to be excluded, but I can see why normal people think it’s useful.

One of the ways it feels particularly oppressive to me is the way it asks me to internalize the demands for compliance. I’m asked to feel bad about things I need, or things that are very important to me, merely because someone else finds them inconvenient (and hasn’t bothered to consider why they might be hard for me). My life would be better in some ways if I could easily and reliably work 9-5 five days a week, 50 weeks a year. But I can’t. And I shouldn’t be asked to feel bad because I don’t follow this meaningless rule. My life would be better if I was always able to wear the clothes I am assigned for certain situations, but I can’t. The rules are exclusionary and do not reliably produce what they claim to, but if I complain about the rules ³This typically applies even if there is a procedure for exception from rule. For example, if the rule says “you will not be allowed to participate if you don’t maintain a 97.4% attendance rate” then lists examples of things that don’t count excuses, the fact that there is an option to make excuses isn’t really accommodation. It’s an … Continue reading I’m the one seen as demanding. My choice is to comply or be excluded, sometimes in way that’s extremely damaging. I’ve made all the survival choices I ever want to, and you shouldnt escalate your fraking dress code into one.

This is lots of bitching about organizations and their exclusion and consolidation of power. But it’s also me being able to pull apart the real ways I was and am hurt – that I see you being hurt – from some of the other aspects of orgs. And it’s all still a little incoherent even after baking overnight. We’ll see if I can pull it together into something more integrated next time.

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Dog hurt himself a little. The pad on his right front paw is a little torn up. He seems to feel better with a bandage on, but it makes him high step with that one leg as he instinctively tries to step out of the tape. It’s like he’s 25% in dressage mode, including a fancy white spat with his black toes sticking out [fig 1]. It’s pretty adorable. It’s also how I imagine I’ll feel wearing socks I’m trying not to hate – technically good for me but hard to get used to.

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.

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