I feel like I talk about my job a bunch on this site. For me it's hard not to, as my job encompasses almost every moment of my life. I'm "buried in the trenches" as it were, living in a group home for teens. My life just about 24/7 is trying to help kids coming from bad situations learn skills to give them a fighting chance of spending their adult years outside of a prison. I don't talk about my job for praise or any sort of accolades; believe me, it's nothing glorious and some days I wonder if I'm making any difference. But still, at least during this segment of my life, it's as much a part of who I am as my family or my Studebaker.
As part of what we do, our kids are involved in school activities. Being that our home is a girls' home, our kids do stuff like softball or cheerleading. I'm not a huge sports fan, and so when we go to athletic activities I spend most of the time monitoring my kids, making sure they don't do anything too out of line. It's funny to watch the cheerleaders, because as the title implies, they're nearly always cheery. Always smiling, watching the game, ready to cheer for the touchdown or lift the crowd's spirits when we're losing. I am a pretty cheery person, and I don't think I can manage to pull off the amount of enthusiasm they can for a fraction of the time they do.
The reason I bring this up is because I feel like as a club and/or forum, we ought to be cheerleaders for our marque. The only problem is that more and more recently, I've noticed something else. It seems that instead of cheering on others, some of us are choosing to nitpick people to death. Instead of working together, I see people taking pot shots at each other. Instead of letting bygones be bygones, I'm seeing flare-ups over feuds that are so old I doubt anyone on either side actually even cares about whatever the situation was that put them at odds with each other in the first place.
To me, this is perhaps the most dangerous, most potentially devastating situation our forum and/or club could face. Let's go back to the cheerleaders for a moment. What if, instead of their perpetual cheeriness, they stood at the sidelines and muttered stuff like "That other team is too tough, I'd quit playing so hard and wait for an easier team to come by" or "You're probably going to fumble the ball if you try that play"? What if they sat in chairs at the sidelines and did little more than whine and moan about every mistake their own players were making, and would never let something drop? "Oh, you missed the shot in the first period? Then I guess it's okay if all the way at the end of the third we still hound you about it." They'd be useless at their jobs. They'd probably cost the team points, and demoralize the crowd. See where I'm going with this?
I think the problem of declining numbers in our club has little to do with the number of older members. I think the bigger problem is that people generally don't gravitate towards those who always have something negative to say. I see this play out every day in my job. The bubbly, likable girl has 100 friends. The one who mopes about and doesn't like anyone and is upset that she even has to be here in the first place has none. It even plays out in the adult circles. There's one mechanic in our organization's garage who's a real pain in the rear, so much so that he'll come just short of yelling at you if the wiper blades are bent. When I drop my van off to be serviced, do you think I'm going to leave it with that guy, or the mechanic who's always friendly and wants to chit chat about my car if he's got a second?
If we want this club and these cars to be around for the future, to outlive us, we need to be attractive to those folks who might only see us for a second. That passerby who had an uncle with a Golden Hawk and found us randomly Googling Studebaker. The guy who was looking for a beater on craigslist and found a homely little Lark he wants to fix up. The Mopar guy who's just starting to realize that Chrysler wasn't the only company out there with good ideas and an eye for styling. They all come here. When they do, what do they see? The large "virtual campfire" where everyone's welcome, or a bunch of cantankerous codgers using the Internet to make themselves look good at the cost of people who the have more in common with than 99% of people they'l pass on the street tomorrow?
I want to be really clear. I don't think this is a "big" problem on our site. On the contrary, of many forums I have participated in, we're one of the most friendly out there, especially to new folks. But I bring it up anyway because if you address something while it's small, it's easier to deal with than if you were to let it grow to colossal proportions. My simple suggestion is that before you post that jab to the dumb kid you don't like, or fire back an angry response at someone who might not have meant to be hurtful with their words, ask yourself what good that's doing. Is it drawing in the random passerby, or scaring them off? Is it making our club as a whole look good, or bad? There's nothing wrong with disagreeing with people, or even posting stuff that can stir up debate. But how you go about participating in those disagreements or debates has a much larger impact than I think some of us realize.
We need to be cheerleaders for the marque. When a young kid wants to take on a huge project, sure, give him warnings about the burden he's taking, but also throw him all the support we can. When there's someone we had a huge falling out with 6 years ago over a minor misunderstanding, and he posts in a thread we created, we should put the past in our past and not automatically blast them to smithereens with our words. This is a fun hobby, and our conversations should reflect that. If we keep using our words to bring others down, it's not only causing division here, but driving away the people who could make sure your cars are loved and cared for after you're six feet under.
In closing, it the hobby isn't fun for you, you need to head for the door and leave me the keys to your cars. I'll make sure they're well cared for
As part of what we do, our kids are involved in school activities. Being that our home is a girls' home, our kids do stuff like softball or cheerleading. I'm not a huge sports fan, and so when we go to athletic activities I spend most of the time monitoring my kids, making sure they don't do anything too out of line. It's funny to watch the cheerleaders, because as the title implies, they're nearly always cheery. Always smiling, watching the game, ready to cheer for the touchdown or lift the crowd's spirits when we're losing. I am a pretty cheery person, and I don't think I can manage to pull off the amount of enthusiasm they can for a fraction of the time they do.
The reason I bring this up is because I feel like as a club and/or forum, we ought to be cheerleaders for our marque. The only problem is that more and more recently, I've noticed something else. It seems that instead of cheering on others, some of us are choosing to nitpick people to death. Instead of working together, I see people taking pot shots at each other. Instead of letting bygones be bygones, I'm seeing flare-ups over feuds that are so old I doubt anyone on either side actually even cares about whatever the situation was that put them at odds with each other in the first place.
To me, this is perhaps the most dangerous, most potentially devastating situation our forum and/or club could face. Let's go back to the cheerleaders for a moment. What if, instead of their perpetual cheeriness, they stood at the sidelines and muttered stuff like "That other team is too tough, I'd quit playing so hard and wait for an easier team to come by" or "You're probably going to fumble the ball if you try that play"? What if they sat in chairs at the sidelines and did little more than whine and moan about every mistake their own players were making, and would never let something drop? "Oh, you missed the shot in the first period? Then I guess it's okay if all the way at the end of the third we still hound you about it." They'd be useless at their jobs. They'd probably cost the team points, and demoralize the crowd. See where I'm going with this?
I think the problem of declining numbers in our club has little to do with the number of older members. I think the bigger problem is that people generally don't gravitate towards those who always have something negative to say. I see this play out every day in my job. The bubbly, likable girl has 100 friends. The one who mopes about and doesn't like anyone and is upset that she even has to be here in the first place has none. It even plays out in the adult circles. There's one mechanic in our organization's garage who's a real pain in the rear, so much so that he'll come just short of yelling at you if the wiper blades are bent. When I drop my van off to be serviced, do you think I'm going to leave it with that guy, or the mechanic who's always friendly and wants to chit chat about my car if he's got a second?
If we want this club and these cars to be around for the future, to outlive us, we need to be attractive to those folks who might only see us for a second. That passerby who had an uncle with a Golden Hawk and found us randomly Googling Studebaker. The guy who was looking for a beater on craigslist and found a homely little Lark he wants to fix up. The Mopar guy who's just starting to realize that Chrysler wasn't the only company out there with good ideas and an eye for styling. They all come here. When they do, what do they see? The large "virtual campfire" where everyone's welcome, or a bunch of cantankerous codgers using the Internet to make themselves look good at the cost of people who the have more in common with than 99% of people they'l pass on the street tomorrow?
I want to be really clear. I don't think this is a "big" problem on our site. On the contrary, of many forums I have participated in, we're one of the most friendly out there, especially to new folks. But I bring it up anyway because if you address something while it's small, it's easier to deal with than if you were to let it grow to colossal proportions. My simple suggestion is that before you post that jab to the dumb kid you don't like, or fire back an angry response at someone who might not have meant to be hurtful with their words, ask yourself what good that's doing. Is it drawing in the random passerby, or scaring them off? Is it making our club as a whole look good, or bad? There's nothing wrong with disagreeing with people, or even posting stuff that can stir up debate. But how you go about participating in those disagreements or debates has a much larger impact than I think some of us realize.
We need to be cheerleaders for the marque. When a young kid wants to take on a huge project, sure, give him warnings about the burden he's taking, but also throw him all the support we can. When there's someone we had a huge falling out with 6 years ago over a minor misunderstanding, and he posts in a thread we created, we should put the past in our past and not automatically blast them to smithereens with our words. This is a fun hobby, and our conversations should reflect that. If we keep using our words to bring others down, it's not only causing division here, but driving away the people who could make sure your cars are loved and cared for after you're six feet under.
In closing, it the hobby isn't fun for you, you need to head for the door and leave me the keys to your cars. I'll make sure they're well cared for
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