[Noisebridge-discuss] Housekeeping history

[Rubin Abdi]

Sounded like there was a discussion about hiring a maid or something
last night. Wanted to point out this game has been played before...

https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Resources/House_Keeping

At 83c we had Molly offer to clean the space in exchange for free
membership and a key. After two meetings of tense discussion it was
decided that we didn't want to exchange anything other than the standard
rate of membership for membership. The argue behind this was if we gave
Molly membership for cleaning the space, someone could translate that
out to getting free membership for donating garbage/resources, or others
not wanting to clean their own messes because they were paying for their
membership.

83c did have a cleaning person come in, Gina. Gina was great and used
Noisebridge more as an experiment to see if she could get some of her
green cleaning ideas from idea to reality to a book she wanted to write.
She was only focused on cleaning surfaces and not dealing with clutter
and hacker cruft.

The two separate housekeeping services I pinged really didn't want to
deal with our space. It isn't easy to clean because we don't have any
logical organization. The most they were willing to do would be to come
and mop the floors and clean off the kitchen counters. Their initial
ball park cost I don't particularly remember but was wayyy more then
Mitch (who was handling our money at the time) had thought was good to
spend for Noisebridge, compared to what was agreed on to spend on the
housekeeper we had at 83c Wiese.

Our solution was burn about $120 every 2 - 3 weeks on tasty sandwiches
for any Noisebridge patrons willing to come by for an eve and help clean
up the space. Whenever I would be in the space not on cleaning days I
would target those I noticed have appeared more than once in the past
two weeks and would ask them a series of questions to determine if
they've helped with Noisebridge, if not I try to woo them into
volunteering for cleaning day in exchange for a taste sandwich and beer.
Typically I would grab about 10 volunteers for the day, of which I would
also announce on the mailing list and wiki.

I did this for a hand full of months until I got annoyed with being
regarded to as the Noisebridge facilities manager, after which I
promptly went into one of those phases of completely avoiding the space
for a couple of months after that, sporadically making random drunken
appearances to annoy others over joyed with my absence. After I gave up
on the cleaning effort, Erin took over for a bit but I don't think ever
asked for Noisebridge funds to pay for tasty sandwiches for the cleaning
mass, she got burnt out just as fast. Al did this for a while too but
I'm not sure what the results were.

Anyhow, you need to split up cleaning into two parts:

* Organizing cruft and clutter (as in objects that are dirt and grime)
* Cleaning surfaces, dirt, grime, etc

The system I described above worked really well, and is a whole like
nicer for the community we've created as it keeps us focused in making
Noisebridge work on our own than throwing money to someone else to fix
for us.

As much as I know we are a group of filthy hackers who still live in our
mom's basement, it would be nice to grow a little instead of letting
someone else clean up after us. Then again fuck Noisebridge, I hope the
hippies burn the space down with the sage they've been burning there
recently, it would be the easiest way to clean the space up.

-- 
Rubin Abdi
rubin at starset.net

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