When I moved into my condo I made a point to attend all of the monthly association meetings. I wanted to a.) get to know my neighbors and b.) understand where the money goes. Well, since an average of four out of 180 units attends, I'm not getting to know the community as quickly as I thought. The other stuff I'm catching on to.
I'm an observer. I sit quietly, mainly unoticed, gathering information about people. I don't do it intentionally, I just do it. It's stemmed from being an incredibly shy child that carried into my twenties. I observe, I get to know personality traits, the good, the bad and the ugly. I had pretty much formed opinions on just about everyone by the sixth month/meeting.
Interestingly, since about the sixth meeting I attended, I started getting approached by the board members to consider running for the board. NO THANKS! was usually my response. I've seen first hand the behavior of the freaks I am surrounded by. Well, they finally broke me in March (after nearly three years) and I'm now the Vice President of the board.
I'm not sure what the Vice President does. Sorry, got to quoting Palin... As VP of the board I really don't have any outlined duties. I've taken it upon myself to write the quarterly newsletters and doing the occasional research for certain projects that are in the works. I do the latter more because I personally don't want to look like an idiot. I want to be able to make informed decisions, not just vote with the others.
The current president is, I believe 73. She is greatly unliked by a large number of owners. I've never gotten to the bottom of this but I am learning about her and now forming my own opinions. Basically, she loves gossip, likes to look out for numero uno and I've actually caught her in a couple of... fibs. (I have a hard time calling a 73 year old woman a liar!). All of this she denies if confronted.
When I decided to run and then actually joined the board I made sure people were aware that I am going to be open minded, fair and hear people out. My opinion is not necessarily the opinion of all. For many years people have become frustrated with the past and current board and have basically given up on trying to get a point across. I feel like I am opening the channels of communication a bit more. It's slow but I'm finding that many of these homeowners who have been labled "trouble" and considered a bit looney are just frustrated... and maybe just a little looney.
Many of these owners just want to be validated and have some sort of acknowledgment that they were heard. This weekend I gathered my courage and called a unit owner that is known to blow up, yell, insult, etc. I was honestly afraid she would bring out the worst in me as I have a low tolerance to that kind of behavior. But, I kept calm and listened and she responded to that, and thanked me (in a round about way) for calling. I poured on the empathy and lightened her foul mood.
I know she still won't be happy with the results of her original concern but at least someone (me) is following up with her. Or I could find the shrubs in front of my building doused with gasoline or my car pushed into the swamp Yes, it's happened there.
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