So, Anna ran for the BOD and won. She was very excited to be giving back to her community. And making use of her background in cooperatives. Once elected to the BOD she soon realized what a rude awakening she was in for.
First of all the directors’ duties are all over the place. As Secretary Anna learned that she would be doing pretty much everything. The President, Vice President and Treasurer kind of just hang out. The Treasurer kind of just waits for management to tell her what to say. She has no knowledge of finance or accounting. When Anna asked about this, she was told that wasn’t necessary, “we have management to do that.”
Anna’s role as Secretary role is that of a Prison Bitch. She is doing all the grunt work: preparing all the documents for meetings, distributing information to all Board members, walking paper documents to every resident, etc. It’s insane. People can’t even be bothered to pick up their own documents. They expect and demand Anna to deliver them to their doors like a servant. There is always some excuse: “I don’t have a computer, I don’t have email, I can’t walk up steps.” Even dropping things off at the management office is a problem somehow. Folks claim they won’t know when the office is open. It’s insanity and pure laziness.
Most boards share responsibilities per their elected roles, and if the Secretary does the most work (which does happen), it ain’t so lopsided as all that. The amount of work Anna is doing EVERY DAY is like preparing for a quarterly board meeting with 8-10 board members for a corporation; not for a small housing cooperative Board of Directors.
There’s a demand for minutes to be almost verbatim, which honestly is NOT standard, and when it IS required, it’s recorded and transcribed, because how the hell else would you do that. I mean, that’s why courts have stenographers.
The president, Geriatric, doesn’t even have an email address yet, nor any knowledge of how to work on a computer. I am not sure how that is even allowed in this day and age, but it is absolutely true. Time for some minimum requirements for running for the Board. I mean come on now.
UPDATE: Once Anna resigned (after serving for 9 months–far too long for the abuse she suffered), the alternate board member who took over her role suddenly started looking haggard all the time, and deeply stressed.
ANOTHER UPDATE: That woman opted the f**k out as soon as annual elections were up, and the new board Secretary turned out to be Sheila. It wasn’t long before Fred was harassing her, going on and on about “Oh these minutes are not accurate” and “Oh this is too much info” and “Oh this is not enough info” and “Oh you are supposed to use white paper for this and goldenrod paper for that”. Fred, btw, is nothing more than a fellow board member, but since he held the role of Secretary for several years (and is almost completely the reason that role is so unbelievably f**cked up), he feels that he knows it best. Yeah, guess what fool–you have no idea how the world works.
And yeah, Sheila is looking haggard too these days. Fred has even gone so far as to try to have her booted off the board, citing incorrect minutes or some other hoo-ha like that. Oh Fred–we feel for your sad life…
Our lovely beautiful co-op, with its two acres of land, has many trees to look at and behold. But alas trees, with all their beauty and glory, require one thing we didn’t plan on: maintenance.
Tales from the Co-op Side 