
A Girl and Her Makerspace: A Tale of Loss - amyjess
https://medium.com/@ngreeley01/a-girl-and-her-makerspace-a-tale-of-loss-aa53665356c0
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StrictDabbler
At least half this article is emotional fluff. It's about 5000 words long.

I feel sorry for the author's loss and the safety incident (curing and sanding
fiberglass in a non-exhausted space) she experienced is certainly both
hazardous and inconsiderate.

That said, an organization created for the purpose of acquiring ever-larger
power tools should have a better rule against that than "be excellent to each
other".

This is what detailed, specific safety rules are for. If you found such a
space and choose not to have them that's partially your responsibility.

If you _do_ have such rules and the board chooses not to enforce them, then
you can make an actual legal complaint against the board. You probably can
anyway under some occupational regulation but it's going to be easier with the
rule in place.

~~~
amyjess
(Full disclosure here: I worked with Andrew, the author's husband, at his day
job for two and a half years before he moved on, and we remain in contact on
Facebook... I don't know if we're close enough to be called _friends_ , but
he's someone who I get along with and whose company I enjoy. I admit that I am
posting this article purely to signal-boost serious ethical issues that are
affecting people I care about.)

For what it's worth, that whole scene wasn't the point of the article. That
was just staging for the real meat of the story to illustrate how much the
Space's culture had changed since Andrew and Cole were on the board: when the
Makerspace's finance committee, of which Andrew is a member, discovered
evidence of what looks like financial malfeasance to them, they asked the
board about the provenance of these transactions, and the board immediately
convened a secret meeting with no notice where they banned _the entire finance
committee_ , including both Andrew, who was one of the co-founders of the
Space, and the Makerspace's Treasurer, Ken Purcell, _in absentia_. That's not
right.

~~~
StrictDabbler
There's a lot that's not right here. It's obviously corruption.

I sincerely wish that the author had written a clear, concise article about
what happened. I'm not certain the article as written has a point except that
she's sad.

Your paragraph here tells me more about what matters in this piece than the
piece does, though I remember each of those details from my initial reading.
They don't come together in the piece.

If you want to actually signal-boost this you might suggest to her that
improving the signal-to-noise ratio would do a lot of good. Too much Wired
magazine styling, too little exposition.

