[sudo-discuss] [omni-consensus] Fwd: Proposal: Hire or Replace Me as Omni's Bookkeeper

[Yardena Cohen]

On Fri, Mar 15, 2019 at 8:24 PM Jenny Ryan <tunabananas at gmail.com> wrote:
> It has been blocked by BAPS, a collective consisting of two white men, on the grounds that I submitted it as some sort of distraction to the current issues and mediation with GCEA.

To be fair, what I heard at last week's meeting was less of a hard
block (eg "I will never agree to this") and more of a soft block (eg
"we need more time to talk about this"). And it wasn't clear to me
whether Julian was representing Julian's self or just trying to be a
responsible delegate and represent Steve's strong feelings. A bit of
both, I guess.

But even if we assume good faith, I'd expect more of an effort to seek
conversation and understanding. I think we had reasonable answers to
every concern Julian brought up, but haven't heard any response, even
a week later:

* Julian says they were suspicious of the timing, and we explained how
your proposal was prompted by a conversation about GCEA, in a totally
non-sinister way
* Julian talked about the dangers of "permanent changes" to Omni's
culture, but we explained how hiring an independent contractor for a
finite timeline is not at all permanent
* Julian talked about this being some kind of "power grab" but wasn't
able to explain how this proposal gives you any more power at all (it
doesn't IMO)
* Julian said we could find someone else, but didn't seem to offer any
actual help in doing so
* Julian seemed to be under the impression that this is a non-urgent
thing with no immediate deadline, but we listed a bunch of urgent
tax-related deadlines coming up

Meanwhile I haven't seen Steve at any delegates meetings all year, nor
has he responded to this email thread. I think we should take blocks
more seriously, and people who say "I block" really should show up to
the metaphorical table to represent themselves.