[hackerspaces] how to deal with tired staff, with hackespaces blues

[dosman]

If the space is not "owned" by the members then it's going to be treated like a pay-for workshop service since that is what you are providing. There's nothing wrong with that, but it sounds like you need to charge more and pay your staff more if they are getting burned out. If you want the users to start cleaning up more then have your staff start enforcing cleanup by users. You could also reduce your open hours to reduce the burden on your staff. Yea none of these things are pleasant for the users but again, they are really customers, not members in this scenario.

On the other hand, if you want the members to take more ownership in the space then you need to include them more. Start by kicking out any jackasses breaking shit if that's what it takes to build trust. Your community is small, someone knows who is causing the problems. Then get the members back with keyed access. Also like others have said, have some meetings with your member base, communicate that the core group is getting tired and that some folks need to step up and help or possibly transition into leadership roles. There may be people interested who have held back because current leadership has been closely guarded or has been doing a good job on the surface.


On Jan 21, 2014, at 9:06 AM, Florencia Edwards wrote:

> It's a different culture here. We have people in charge of coordinating workshops, of putting in a spreadsheet who are attending, another preson in charge of buying workshop materials, a person a in charge of the community to make blogposts, and general posts informing workshops and memberships to people out there who aren't member  and coordinating the general forum. A person in charge of content layout. This is the staff. The members are just doing their own projects, they don't have time for doing stuff for the makerspece. Where I live, people are not even used to wash their own dishes, we wash a lot for them
> 
> And since rent is not cheap, we can't make memberships free or just a "donate what you can"  thing 
> 
> 
> 2014/1/21 Joshua Pritt <ramgarden at gmail.com>
> What kind of work are you doing?  I've always thought of a hackerspace as a bunch of volunteers anyway. If anyone sees the trash can overflowing just take it out. If you see a giant pile of dirt or something on the floor sweep it up.  Then once a month or every third month hold a clean up day on a Saturday and everyone pitches in on a pizza and soda. The other bit of work would be running the space which is usually handled by the treasurer and president and secretary and facilities committee. These positions are elected by the members every quarter or semi annually.  This way someone who doesn't want to our doesn't have the time to run the place can let someone else do it. Of course there has to be someone to nominate themselves for each position and they know they are doing it for free so they have to really want to see the space continue to grow and thrive. I'm not sure how that would work if everyone has this survivor attitude...
> 
> 
> 
> On Jan 21, 2014 8:45 AM, "Florencia Edwards" <floev22 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Dear hackerspaces, how do you deal with a tired staff. I'm one of them, it seems like we work work work, and every day there are less members, less people willing to give something back to the space and  we get the feeling that the majority just wants to take and doesn't share , wants discounts, and  to get  free materials but they never give anything to anyone. There are  people that think we are millionaires and want to take part of the cut any way they can. 
> >
> > Here where we are from people don't trust each other, they are like survivors, try to get what they need and than they escape.
> >
> > And in fact, we are losing money every month. As staff we are badly paid, we are more sort of  volunteers, we can't get through the month with what we win. I work here at the space full time, than i get home and i keep working , I can't afford lunch anymore . We can sense that the whole staff is tired and in a bad mood, and the more time it passes it's worse. And I wish I could see more people happy with this, changing, wanting to share, wanting to make a community... But sometimes it feels like a illusion 
> >
> > Any advice, or just share our pain hehe, we should make hackerspaces blues. 
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Discuss mailing list
> > Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> > http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss