Coworkers

Katie D.

February 6, 2011 - 9:46 PM

I am constantly amazed and inspired by the people I work with.

My work with Inside-Out brings me into contact with such an array of talents and experience that I am constantly humbled and inspired by my working hours. Driving home from working meetings in Salem yesterday, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed at my luck in coworkers and work opportunities. I can't believe how lucky I am.

"Coworkers" is loosely defined. Work in the nonprofit sector always involves a combination of work and volunteer hours. In a university setting, you deal with students as volunteers and students as academic peers. In a grassroots organizational setting, you work closely with and are directed by what a top-down organization might consider the "population served," or the voiceless consumers. We are a motley collection of volunteers, staff, professionals, students, advocates, and insiders. We are all ages and come from a vast disparity of backgrounds.

Let me describe my working day yesterday. First, my best friend and coworker Madeline and I spent the hour drive to Portland discussing work ideas and ways of deepening Inside-Out offerings at the Oregon State Penitentiary. As with all our working commutes, we mix the business of our friendships with the work of our internships for Inside-Out. Then we arrived at the prison, and were greeted by Nancy Green, who is the director of all educational programming for the Salem prisons. She is a faculty member at Chemeketa Community College and is one of the most dedicated and organized people I have ever met, and holds the respect of everyone I've talked to within the prison setting. Then our entry into the prison was facilitated by a series of correctional officers, who represent a range of attitudes about the Inside-Out Program, but who are generally extremely respectful and kind to me.

Our meeting itself was regarding the formation of an "Education Club" at the Oregon State Penitentiary, to be run by inmates and with the purpose of encouraging greater participation in the college classes in the prisons, and assisting in the lower-level educational programs. The meeting included me, Madeline, Nancy, and Ben and James. James was the co-editor of Turned Inside-Out magazine, and has been a friend and advocate of Inside-Out for years now. Ben is a student in my current Inside-Out class, and this will be his sixth upper-division college course through Inside-Out. They are both wonderful to work with: they are creative, organized, and know the bureaucracy of the prison inside and out.

After our two hour meeting, we left the prison and met with another Inside-Out instructor who teaches through Chemeketa. We talked about alumni initiatives, the upcoming regional meeting, and program development. Michele is becoming a dear friend as well as being a huge help in implementing new programs at the prison.

Then Madeline and I drove home, again strategizing and debriefing our meetings. She is an essential part of my self care in this work: work within the correctional system is emotionally draining and difficult to debrief people who haven't experienced similar work. So our drive back is a central part of my day.

Then I return home, log in, and begin my online interactions with Inside-Out nationwide. I communicate with professors I have come to know from institutions across the country. I update the Inside-Out alumni blog, finish a project proposal, send a note to the National Director of Inside-Out, email an alumna in Singapore, and scan through upcoming events and tasks. It is a network in the most empowering sense: I am a hyperactive cog in this ever-growing matrix of people who are passionate about this work and who are engaging in the tasks in their own ways.

I can't believe my luck with this job. My closest coworkers are: two UO students one year younger than myself, several adult professors and staff people, and several men incarcerated at the Oregon State Penitentiary. They are my network, and we are professionals at what we do.

Occasionally I worry that I won't find a job later in life with the power and inspiration of my current employment. Then I see my network and I remember that this is a constant dialogue, with a constantly-shifting need for voices and skills. I'm at the center of my own little mass of projects. Thank goodness for the flexibility I currently enjoy, and here's to a lifetime of such luck!