Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh! (Part II)

I guess it is sort of like the difference from wading into the water slowly or diving in when it is only seventy degrees. After a absolutely peaceful week in the Ozarks mountains overlooking Table Rock Lake at quite possibly one of the most peaceful and beautiful resorts in the world, I feel like I've been thrown into an oven.

WARNING: The following post is extremely whiney and you probably should go read something else instead.

I have at least ten different computer help calls (of the non-paying variety), which wasn't all that great, but I can live with it. Then, I opened up my e-mail box yesterday to find the final blow in a long, hard struggle of mine to stay involved in publicity work at my church. As you may recall in the post I linked to, I was removed from that function concerning work to do with the 40 Days of Purpose last year. I had been given the 40 DoP position as a logical extension of a similar permanent role. I had further inherited that role since I did the publicity work, before an official role was created, as part of a committee I am on.

Ever since the official role had been created, certain people had been trying to remove me from it under the excuse of giving me “more time” (as someone under the person filling the role) to work on some of my other projects at church which, presently, aren't even under the authority of the said committee. In other words, remove me from what I am doing and also change my replacement's authority so that they would not only do what I did in that capacity but also would be the leader of other projects I've started which presently are things I work directly with the pastors on (the church web site, for instance).

I had fought that because I loved doing the publicity work. A lot of it provides for a chance to be really creative and I liked that. But, I knew the day was coming that it would be over, I just didn't know when. While I was on vacation I was e-mailed and told — in a manor that, again, attempts to give the impression of “it's for your own good” — that someone else would be handling all communication between committees and the publicity group and that person would handle creating the publicity and that person would handle coordinating with the media. The other members, myself included, would make suggestions to this person. That would “free me up” to devote my publicity time to the web site (which isn't part of the publicity group, as I noted before).

Essentially, then, myself and the team I had assembled would be a figurehead subcommittee that had no real involvement in the core of our work. While I'm not “off” the committee that coordinates these subcommittees, I would have nothing to do with what my committee was in charge of. Obviously, it seems like it is time to step down, if for no other reason than to avoid eventually having the web site reassigned as well. It's all just a bunch of bureaucracy at its worst, really.

It's not life or death or anything, but it has been draining. I had the honor to start a lot of the initiatives that the publicity group works on, so it is hard to let go, but I think that would be better than the alternative of sticking around, when I truly consider what is going on. It is also hard seeing certain people I thought very highly of using behind the scenes manipulation to alter the way this group of subcommittees work. Certainly, the majority of people involved have nothing to do with it, I'm quite sure of that from what I've learned over the last two or two and a half years, but it is saddening to see what's going on with the ones that do.

I probably shouldn't even submit this post, I guess, but here it is.