[Noisebridge-discuss] Sleeper problem.

Al Sweigart asweigart at gmail.com
Fri Jul 15 22:27:22 UTC 2011


Sounds good. I'll forward the info to you and encourage others to do the same.

On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 12:37 PM, Danny O'Brien <danny at spesh.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 11:55 AM, Al Sweigart <asweigart at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I came to Noisebridge this morning to check for sleepers. I haven't
>> done so in a while. There were about half a dozen people up and
>> working on stuff, and two people crashed on couches and chairs.
>>
>> One them was Lennie, who's a new guy who started coming to the space a
>> month or two ago. I bring this up in particular because this is the
>> third time I've found him sleeping at the space. As usual, I woke him
>> up and talked to him a bit about Noisebridge's sleeper problem and
>> then asked him to leave. (When I wake people up and don't ask people
>> to leave, they just go back to crashing at Noisebridge when I walk out
>> the door. I've checked.)
>
> Hey Al,
>
> As I've said a couple of times in private email, and several people
> said in the meeting, it'd be useful to coordinate so you don't end
> being the only person turning up in the mornings or checking up on
> these things.
>
> I think what you say and do to people who are just using the space to
> sleep in has added force if others are doing it also, and also having
> some co-operation on this also helps prevent burnout or the idea that
> this is just something you're doing off your own bat. It's a lot
> harder for someone to protest that you're exclusively conducting a
> guilt trip when there are several others talking to them about their
> behaviour. It also means that they are reminded about it when there's
> no Al around.
>
> My understanding was also that one of the reasons why you're unhappy
> about the lack of a concrete rule about opening times or whether it's
> appropriate to sleep in the space, is because without such a rule, you
> feel diminishes your capability to actually ask people to leave, and
> it makes you feel awkward because you are unsure of the level of
> support. Many people at the meeting said that you do have support, and
> that the NB way to provide that support more concretely was to provide
> some structure and co-operation for what you're doing.
>
> Some people also wanted to know who was sleeping at the space, because
> it was confusing to hear rumors and conflicting reports. You said that
> you felt uncomfortable giving names in public because of the criticism
> over privacy that you received last time this had happened.
>
> In response to that, I agreed to act as a resource so you and others
> could inform me of who you've seen, and I could keep a tally and
> publicise in a way to nb-discuss of the level of the problem that
> would both help preserve people's privacy and Googeability, actually
> collect them some concrete data,  document whether this problem is
> getting worse or better, etc. I willing to spend some time working out
> how to be both public about the facts and protective of privacy,
> because it's actually something I face pretty repeatedly when doing
> the secretarial tasks.
>
> I'd like to repeat, in public, the offering of both of these
> solutions: people to help you, and some system to track and publicise
> the level of recurring sleeping. What do you think?
>
>>
>> I was polite, he was polite. He explained that he was just taking a
>> short nap and not sleeping (which was the same explanation he gave the
>> first two times, and it wasn't very believable then either.) He said
>> he thought it was disrespectful to wake people up and ask them to
>> leave. He implied that people stopped hanging around the space because
>> I was waking up sleepers in the morning (I usually arrive between 6am
>> and 7am), and some other guilt-trip remarks. His stalling went on for
>> about half an hour, but I kept replying that he's free to work all
>> night at Noisebridge but needs to make plans for getting home before
>> he gets sleepy, and that he still had to leave this morning. Lennie
>> packed up and walked over to Mitch and spent another half hour
>> explaining himself, and finally left. I left a little bit later. After
>> I got on my bike and was riding away I noticed he was back at the
>> Noisebridge gate.
>>
>> This isn't a one-off thing, and Lennie never said he'd stop doing it.
>> Talking to him about doesn't phase him one bit. If this becomes a
>> problem again (and tell me if it does), I'm going to tell Lennie to
>> stop coming to Noisebridge.
>>
>> -Al
>>
>> Also, the sinks were full of dishes, there were fruit flies hovering
>> around food that had been left out, and vegetables are being stored in
>> unsealed containers again where the rats can get to them. On the plus
>> side, the kitchen counters were clean and the hackers-to-sleepers
>> ratio is a complete inversion of what it was a couple weeks ago.
>
> The kitchen, and a lot of the space was *really* clean yesterday
> (though I noticed as I left that fruit was being brought into the
> space). A couple of people commented to me on how much more organized
> and tidy the place is  looking, and as I left, Espen was finishing on
> his work tidying up the workshop.
>
> I think maybe we get a situation where plates are left in the sink
> overnight, but cleaned afterwards (whether by the same people or just
> grumpy/generous people cleaning I don't know).
>
> d.
>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
>> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>



More information about the Noisebridge-discuss mailing list