Demons

[gordonzola]

A co-worker killed himself yesterday. We weren’t that close. Indeed, I probably fought with him more about work issues than any other single co-worker I’ve had over the years. But I never stopped liking him. Really, he was mostly a sweetheart, an exasperating one to be sure, but a guy with a good heart. We could fight over x-mas music in the store, seasonal allocation of space, his ridiculous assertions about his department’s worth to the store -- and often in buyers meetings I would be the main force opposing him – but we’d run into each other at the Eagle or at the park near where we both lived for a long time, buy each other a beer and enjoy each other’s company.

In my co-op political work one of my main goals is to discourage the idea that our workplace is a family. For too long at our store -- and in too many other co-ops -- bad people and dysfunctional workers use that dynamic, much like in real families, to manipulate others, get their way, and skate on infractions that would get them fired from any other workplace in the country. This isn’t the time for that essay, but as I thought about the fact that, while that is true, it also only needs to be my co-op political line because there are so many ways in which that line is blurred already.

When death hits the store it’s clear that we are not a regular retail workplace. True, we didn’t close for the day, but workers stopped and took the time they needed. Some people left and there will be no discipline or reprisal. People made a quick altar* and began calling other co-workers who needed to know. Today was a coupon day** which generally means we are all at full speed, stressed and hurried. But when we got the news people cried, hugged, and talked and basically, no offense,*** ignored the customers as much as possible. Death didn’t make it us-and-them exactly, more just… well… like we’ve taken a loss and aren’t quite ready to talk about it to outsiders yet. It made us even more clannish than usual.

A few years ago a different co-worker was run over by a semi while riding his bike in a funeral procession for a bike messenger. That hit the store in the same way. That day -- and if memory serves me right it was right before Thanksgiving -- we even had a spontaneous moment of silence that someone called for over the intercom. I will never forget all of us stepping away from our work areas in response. The customers were confused but stayed quiet too, sensing that we weren’t playing, that something was really wrong.

I don’t know if it’s true for everyone, but it seems like all the people I’ve known who’ve killed themselves -- either quickly or slowly -- were done in by their demons. I don’t want to expose or speculate on Tom’s demons but I know they were there. Still, it was a surprise. Many times I’ve known people who died too young but there was often an element of yeah-I-saw-that-coming about it. Not here. Tom was fairly resilient, or at least seemed to be. No one I talked to saw this coming though all agreed he’d had it rough recently.

Demons. We all have them to some extent, so what make some people’s so much harder for them to bear? I would never claim all demons to be equal but some folks certainly seem to be able to bear more than others. One person can bear a bad thing that can send someone else over the brink. Of course, these things are never really comparable because we never know all the demons that someone else has had to bear previously, right?

It was a hard, sad, confusing day at work today and I can imagine tomorrow will be the same as more folks find out or get to talk about it for the first time. If you are shopping, (and it is another coupon day) be nice and be patient.



***One of the things I love best about the store is that any worker can put a picture and a candle at the front desk to honor someone who recently died. I have done this myself too many times: Joe Strummer, June Jordan, Del Martin, Wendy O Williams, Ron Apple…
**Luckily after 5:45 almost everyone was home watching the debate so it was pretty slow tonight.
***I know I saw a few of you. Sorry if I didn’t seem happy to see you but at first it was all-engrossing and too much to try to explain

Comments

[loolica.livejournal.com]

Gordon, I'm sorry for your loss. I'm also sorry you have so many opportunities to write with eloquence about folks you know dying.

I'm eager to hear your thoughts about the co-op as family. It's the same in the labour movement. People (mostly people older than I, but not exclusively) still call each other brother and sister (without irony!) and still refer to our EMPLOYER (a union) as brothers (no sisters there, of course). I always argue that the nuclear family is no model for political organization, but people just think I'm a crank.

[orchid-and-wasp.livejournal.com]

So sorry you all are hurting.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

i think that one of the things that rituals might be for are for the expression of grief and salutation in community (this is sounding really stupid). but feeling bad about somebody's death because he is a stranger -- that thing of philo, be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle -- is very important. some people, i suspect those who believe in coops, believe that grace cannot flow to an individual and can only flow to the group. on this basis, somebody once explained to me, many countries are ruled and religions/systems of ethics founded.
i think what i mean is that a ritual allows even family members to behave themselves when the shit hits the fan.
the distinction between community/coop/family is very interesting and i hope you will address it some day.
meanwhile, this is a great post. thank you. salve and vale.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

First, I'm sorry for your loss...

I've personally known a handful of people who've killed themselves. If I think about it, there seem to be one of three reasons:

A. Anger. The guy who shot himself in his girlfriend's bed, knowing she would come home and see his brains all over her walls.

B. Shame. A very fine man I knew drowned himself after his stepdaughter alleged he had molested her when she was a child. (I have no idea whether those allegations are true. Knowing this person as I did, I think the shame of the accussation itself might have been enough to drive him to despair.)

C. Depression. I suppose depression might be considered a combination of anger and shame. I also know for myself whenever I've felt deeply depressed I've felt...invisible.

I think one of the nicest things about you is that you acknowledge people, make them aware that you know they're there, and I daresay you did that for your late colleague more than you may realize.

[zanyassmask.livejournal.com]

i think A and B, to really drive someone to do it, are all a part of C.

[zanyassmask.livejournal.com]

sorry to hear it.

demons

[unemployia.livejournal.com]

thoughtful posts yes. my last job in a small bussiness as mostly one of the only employees they had, felt like a "family" and i can see what you mean, it was way better than all my ohter jobs but had its special dysfunction to it.

I like your summation of "demons" . I like your voice, what you mean and participate in community.

many times I've known people to kill themselves, they DID surprise me, they didn't express it. at all. they didn't talk about it. my smiling neighbor, moved in wiht his parents, after a divorce, would see him smoking. Hello? how are you? fine.

that kind of thing. dead dead dead. many neighbors. many folks who didn't reach out, who couldn't open up, who didn't say how bad they feel. thats why, although its tricky - yes tricky, I try to say , or let out, how bad I feel, sometimes, when I feel that bad

and think talking can help. (it can also be too much) (but you know, everything in balance)

I apreciate you sharing the stories of your workplace and I am sorry for your co-worker and hope hes at peace now.

[lemon-says.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry for your loss. I hope all of you find peace.

My dear friend's mom killed herself this summer. She'd had the craziest life with some terrible, terrible things happen to her, and then one day she came home from the doctor and couldn't stand her physical pain anymore, best we can tell. It was so shocking because she had withstood so many things and I wonder if there was one thing that suddenly was too much. It could have been the pain--you know I have recently become no stranger to what permanent physical pain can do to your mind--but I have so many questions.

[lizsybarite.livejournal.com]

That's incredibly hard to process, and moving to read. I'm so sorry.

It made us even more clannish than usual.

That's an interesting observation, because the exact same thing happened in our small office when one of the co-owners died suddenly. We really knit together - a few colleagues started working ridiculous, unpaid hours to try to make up for the work he'd been doing prior to his death. I've never been through a work experience like that before... I'm more used to the unite-against-management ethic. It was kind of surreal.

[charlottecooper.livejournal.com]

Tough news. I'm sorry to hear about this.

[the-living-end.livejournal.com]

i am so sorry.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

I'm very sorry to read this.

[sadie-sabot.livejournal.com]

oh wow, that is really hard. I think one of the most difficult things about suicide is how hard it is not to get caught up i the idea that thee is something that could have been done. I'm sorry.

and sometime in the future i would love to hear your thoughts about collectives and family and stuff like that.

[anarqueso.livejournal.com]

I'm still not sure what I think about this, other than it's sad. I don't know if I'm surprised or not. Part of me thought of him as bouncy, resilient, and maybe too shallow for anything like this. Part of me saw him as a person way too close to emptiness, one going through some hard times. I sure didn't know him well enough to know how hard they've been.

I did think about him while he was recently gone from work. I wouldn't say I missed him, because we rarely even see each other, but I thought sweet and hopeful thoughts, and I was glad to see him back and now, now he's gone again and it's hard to understand.

Mostly, I'm thinking about the loving and strained relationship he had with his family.

And you know I agree with you about the work/family thing. Family's no model for equal and healthy relationships. I feel lucky to have such a complex and supportive work community, and I'm grateful that you're part of it.

[cheekytubemouse.livejournal.com]

*hug*

[capn-jil.livejournal.com]

condolences.

i hope your customers are tolerable

also you rock so hard for putting a candle at the front desk for wendy o williams god damn

[the-macnab.livejournal.com]

I'm very sorry to hear that. I'm happy though that Rainbow responds that way. Good on ya.

I agree with you that the family metaphor is pernicious in voluntary organizations. On a smaller scale, there are still members of our community garden who refuse ever to vote for expelling other members even when the latter have flagrantly violated the terms of the contract for years. It undermines whatever structure the organization has set up and brings the Tyranny of Structurelessness in through the back door. Write the essay; you could be the next Jo Freeman.

[rednfiery.livejournal.com]

this is so sad, gordon. i'm sorry for your (and your coworkers') loss.

he must have felt very alone and without hope. that just breaks my heart.

[clynne.livejournal.com]

I'm terribly sorry to hear about your coworker.

peace be w you and yr community

[lostcosmonaut.livejournal.com]

sorry, dog

I tend to think of suicide as very much a chemical thing, too -- you get th right mix of external/internal, and th whole experiment goes kabloom

--mza.

[lovelikeyeast.livejournal.com]

Uch, I'm sorry.

[gleemie.livejournal.com]

Gordon, I'm really sorry for this loss.

And I'm not sure suicide is a shallow or deep thing, in response to one of your commenters. But I'm not going to debate with someone who is going through this sort of loss.

[grapesoda.livejournal.com]

xoxo appreciate this.

[dcart.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry for your loss and that of your co-workers.

[ginoushka.livejournal.com]

Oh, sweetie. I'm sorry.

(I agree with you re: the family dynamic, too.)

[ketzie.livejournal.com]

Condolences and hugs.

I would like to read your thoughts on the coop/family thing.

[sabotabby]

Damn, I'm really sorry.

[culturalvacuum.livejournal.com]

There can be also be a dubious "family" dynamic in the non-profit world, especially with small organizations, but it's not usually the sort of thing that allows slackers to coast, or at least not for very long. Everyone's underpaid, nearly everyone's doing the work because they're passionate about the "cause," and most people are working really hard, and a lot of extra hours. The "we're all in the trenches together" mentality, and the fact that orgs generally are made up of people with similar ideologies and backgrounds, can definitely end up leading to cliched statements like, "We're all part of the [ACRONYM] family!" Of course, when the bosses say that it's at least as much to continue leveraging that free/underpaid labor as to express any genuine sentiment.

When things get especially messy is when those organizations start growing, and bringing in workers who have more professional expertise but less direct connection to either the cause or the siege mentality and culture from when the organization was small and struggling. It doesn't help that you generally have to pay "market rates" to the new folks while many of the long-term employees are just getting small, marginal bumps from the salaries they had back when money was scarcer.

I've been in fundraising for about a decade now, and at my current job I got hired just at the leading edge of the change. I was out in front of a bunch of my co-workers for a while, but I've managed to slide into the "bitter old-timers" category over the last 4.5 years as the place has doubled in size, new hires have come in with what seem like outrageously inflated titles and salaries, and money has been thrown at any number of other things than my salary. When certain of the higher-ups fall back on the same old family song and dance these days, it's all I can do to keep from rolling my eyes and coughing out *bullshit!* under my breath. Out of the sixty or so people currently on our U.S. staff, only 9 were working for the organization when I was hired less than five years ago.

[barthanderson.livejournal.com]

Sorry, G. Sorry, co-op.

[knowyermonkey.livejournal.com]

sorry to hear about this gordon.

[hematopoetic.livejournal.com]

Sorry for your loss, G. <3

So Sad. . .

[rochdale.livejournal.com]

That is really sad news. Please give everyone my condolences.

We've been relatively fortunate, but it does hit harder than at other places I think. In '03, we had our first on-the-job fatality. It was an ironic death as the driver was returning home from a rural fireman's festival where we provided discounted safe rides home. He was killed by a drunk driver. Other than losing a member (and for many a friend), it was the first time for a lot of us to have the illusion of safety that cab drivers must believe in get ripped away.

You are correct about the difference in the workplace. I think that you are make good points about the negativity of "family" (athough we call ourselves the "Yellow Family"), but worker cooperatives are societies or communities in a way that most workplaces are not. I think that people use the term family precisely because of the dysfunction that, to some extent, we need to tolerate.