feather wrote:
I could sit here and bore everyone with a tale of a 20yr community worker who walked away, dropped £6,000 from their salary and became a computer salesman, rather than have their fingerprints on a statutory sector coup of a voluntary sector series of major projects.
That saw the closure of long standing, diverse programmes, cost the community many jobs and ended up with a homogenised, blend of blandness being contained in a building which was designed like Fort Knox, rather than welcoming and open buildings it replaced.
Within a couple of years it had also managed to incredibly rack up £5 million in debts.
Did it jar to walk away?
Hell yes!
Would it have been more painful to stay and participate in that fiasco?
There is no way I could tolerate that.
Conclusion: I've been better off out of it and I have my principles, memories and self respect intact.
Let it go girl. Let it go!!
Ok, I'm trying to get this discussion away from my individual gripes. But in response to this comment, that decision was obviously right for that social worker, as an individual. However, I thought I had just enough internal support in a national movement to not only carry through the reforms that I did manage, whilst under attack by a cabal of the corrupt, but to bring together warring tribes within the movement. This was bigger than little me, it still is, and I am still active in the movement, though not able to be elected to committees for now. I've been on related committees for over two decades, and it isn't possible to just walk away, knowing what I know. I couldn't retain my self-respect if I did so, so I will keep helping others who need my particular expertise, without pay. That is how I exercise my freedom of speech, and stand tall. My advice after years of fighting to a standstill at times, before giving in to the temptation to give up, try, try again, and you just might find a way to beat the bullies. It is mainly a matter of organising, (sometimes that is in the end impossible), and just doing what you can from within. Even when we are thrown out, or locked up, history teaches us that patient, moral and principled resistance wins out against dictators.
