[hackerspaces] payed staff vs volunteers

[Overflo]

ohai

we had this discussion before at metalab vienna.
there is a makerspace in vienna where they have paid staff. the whole
culture there is VERY different from ours.
we decided we dont want this for our space and that voluntary engagement
is a very important part of staying open and selfregulating.
this works so lala for metalab, could be better, could be much worse.
especially cleaning and maintaining all the hardware is a tedious
struggle, but i doubt it would be more efficient  if people would be paid
to take care of this tasks.
in fact it would make everyone else not contribute anymore.


we DO have a paid cleaning company coming in one day a week for 4 hours to
clean the toilets and mob the floors.
that was a very good decision.



:*
-flo



On Sun, 14 Dec 2014 15:20:32 -0300, Florencia Edwards <floev22 at gmail.com>
wrote:
> What do you think, I believe it really changes how the whole space
works,
> and how members behave if you have payed staff or volunteers. Also it
> changes the commitment in tasks. If anyone has had experience with both,
> could you please give the pros and cons? Or if you just had experience
with
> one, it would be nice to know how it's worked for you and what was good
and
> bad about it.
> 
> In our space, we had payed staff, but members behaved more like
costumers
> who wanted their services to be perfect, than  an active community that
> does things not only with their own projects,but also for the space. 
Payed
> staff was with a low wage, but they where happy they could get enough to
> get by, and build a community, help around... But their was also the
> feeling that it would be good to engage in the possibility of giving
> rotation to the staff. For example: people that came in, wanted to help
> .needed the money, and really wanted to be staff. Why shouldn't they get
a
> chance? So we thought that maybe voting for a staff and rotating it
could
> be a good idea. But we are not sure.
> 
> All thoughts, links and opinions more than welcome.