Worker’s Compensation (Part Two)

May 10, 2024

Read Part One first.

In the fall of 2021, a cluster of things—the virus, turning 50, our growing children, and the state of the nation—caused me to pause. What work am I doing? Feelings of uselessness and alienation crept in, unwelcome feelings which did not ebb with my usual interventions—more prayer and more self-care, which now seems to be the conventional answer to every malaise. 

So I looked about for meaningful work, and reflected on what I had to offer. One of the most satisfying days I’d spent in quarantine was volunteering at Carversville Farm, a non-profit farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which custom-farms organic food for Philadelphia food pantries. It was blistering hot and humid, and we were assigned to dig potatoes. Talking to my friend, the farm staff, and the other volunteers while working recalled everything I loved about growing up. At the end of our shift I was hot, sweaty, tired, and uplifted. Plus I’m strong and fast.

Back in New York City for the school year, I needed a local gig. I considered retail; I could do shift work for producers at our local Greenmarket, where I was once the Executive Director, and I considered working for a city gardener, but my main idea was to volunteer. I called The Jefferson Market Garden, but it had a waiting list for volunteers. Finally I settled on our local park, Washington Square, which we use almost daily, and where we’d volunteered with the kids before. I signed up for litter clean-up (a solo job) and for the weekly garden team, with a group under the supervision of Parks staff. In addition to serving the Park and working outdoors, I hoped to learn more about the four seasons of the garden beds and how it all worked.

After some basic training on health and safety—some of the drug garbage is dangerous—I was issued a uniform and ID. Wearing my t-shirt, baseball cap, gloves, and badge, I dropped the kids at school, and headed to my first day. We were introduced to the gardener in charge, Guillermo, and we began to plant fall bulbs. He was friendly, as were the volunteers, and I felt the familiar pleasures of working side by side with others on a good cause while chatting about this and that. When we were nearly finished and the space became too small for the group, I picked up litter while we waited for our new assignment. Soon Guillermo brought us to a new plot, where we weeded, picked up trash, and planted more narcissus. I adore spring bulbs and the vision of the flowers coming up next year, in their clean whites and cheerful yellows, was joyful.

During this second shift Guillermo came back to check on us. This time there were no instructions as we were working smoothly on a simple task. He sat down to chat, telling personal stories and joking. After a few minutes I wondered why he was sitting, and asked him. He ignored me. He was stretched out like Bugs Bunny, with one leg bent, regaling us. We volunteers all kept working. After twenty minutes, I asked again. “Oh, I thought you were joking,” he said. “I don’t think it’s good leadership to sit while others are working,” I said, “I grew up on a farm, and my parents would never have allowed us to sit, watching people work.”

Guillermo stood up and raged at me. He stomped and shouted. “You father wouldn’t last a day in my job!” He said our farm was a place of “harassment” and “abuse.” He screamed a lot of other things and stormed off. We finished our shift. Later I wished everyone, including Guillermo, who dropped by again, goodbye until next time.

Sheryl called a few days later. She supervised the volunteer program of the Washington Square Park Conservancy, the local charity which supports the Park. She wanted to talk about a “weird” report. Unperturbed, I told her exactly what happened.

Sheryl said that her priority was the health and safety of Park staff. I objected to the suggestion that I had threatened anyone’s health or safety. He screamed at me. 

Sheryl did not care. She said that while I could still pick up litter on my own, I was not invited to the next gardening shift. I was appalled but somehow still light-hearted. It seemed like a small-town kerfuffle, a hissy-fit, a storm in a teacup. “You can’t fire me,” I joked. “I’m a volunteer.” 

“Oh, yes we can,” said Sheryl brightly. I asked for a meeting with Guillermo to clear the air as adults. After all, convicts are sitting down with victims in Restorative Justice circles to clear the air. How hard could a handshake be? Sheryl allowed that Guillermo was known to be sensitive, but she said she’d ask.

After several requests, I was denied the chance to speak to Guillermo. His boss Will Morrison, the head of the Park, offered me a sit-down instead. The meeting was a study in assigning blame, weak logic, and bureaucratic evasion.

Will opened. The “mental health” of his staff was his priority.

Again I objected to the implication. “I didn’t harm anyone. I did speak up for the value of my time and the dignity of my labor. That’s all. I’d be happy to meet and work it out.” 

“That will not be possible,” said Will.

Sheryl said, “If you’d wanted water or a rest break, you could have asked.”

“I didn’t need a rest or water. If Guillermo had called for a break, I would have joined. He didn’t. He sat down for twenty minutes while we worked.”

Will said that in management, there was an approach he favored, which he described as, “Praise in public, correct in private.”

I asked whether Will thought public servants should only be praised in public. He did not.

Will said, “If it had not been your first day.…”

We were in Will’s office, with Parks staff going here and there. Looking around, I said, “So, if a new employee comes to work and observes something amiss—maybe malfeasance, or abuse, when is it acceptable to speak up? After two weeks? A year?” Will smiled weakly.

Sheryl said, “If you had reported Guillermo’s behavior to us….”

“But I had no desire to complain to my boss that I’d been yelled at. I have no interest in adding to Guillermo’s personnel record, nor waste the time of his busy superiors.”

All I wanted to accomplish then was to stand up for my time and labor. All I wanted now was to meet, shake hands, and move on. “That will not be possible,” said Will.

To my husband’s dismay, I continued with litter clean-up, a few times, in my own clothes (because it’s no fun to wear the uniform of a volunteer corps that doesn’t want you), but the experience left me sad and cynical. The Washington Square Park Conservancy fired a local donor, enthusiastic supporter, and a hard-working volunteer. A Parks boss protected a staff from personal and professional development. Will and Sheryl chose bureaucracy over people, procedure over resolution, protection over transparency, punishment over progress. 

The incident is small, and my own experience of no consequence. But it reflects an erosion of the values and attitudes which brought my husband to the Greenwich Village of Jane Jacobs more than thirty years ago. At the age of 42, Robbie Kaufelt restarted his life and career working behind the counter at Murray’s Cheese, a business he’d bought with the last bucks in his bank account. 

We stay here, with our three children, because we love it. Greenwich Village is a small, walkable neighborhood. Every day we see people we know, and we learn to get along. We like to stop to talk to the doughty supporters of our block association, founded in 1971. We like to wave to neighbors who keep our keys or bring in the paper when we can’t. We like to keep an eye on older friends and those who live alone. We like to leave flowers or peach crumble under the bench for a friend. We appreciate the people who wave and smile and look out for us. 

Our chosen local charities, including Village Preservation, Jefferson Market Garden, Trinity Lower East Side Lutheran on Avenue B, and The New Shul, are small and scrappy. Because we’re not trying to climb any ladder, whether social or bureaucratic, we can be ourselves. We stay in The Village because we like people who are aren’t warped by homogeneity and ambition.

Will was surely shouldering his way up in Parks. A couple of years later, he was elevated to run both Washington Square Park and the Washington Square Park Conservancy, consolidating power over two organizations. It’s not clear what would happen now if the Park (a creature of the Mayor) and the Conservancy (a charity) were to disagree. Today they both employ Will Morrison. In the new-role announcement, there was a nice photo of Will and Guillermo. Perhaps heads had cooled? I thought I would ask, one more time, for a meeting. Will replied:

With my appointment to the dual role, it would be me that you would meet with to discuss volunteering or other issues at the park whether in my Parks capacity or as the Executive Director of WSPC. I would be happy to schedule a call or in person meeting with you to discuss this further if you would like, but Gui is a Parks employee and per Parks protocol any issues between a Parks employee and a park patron are referred to a supervisor for discussion with the park patron, which is me in this case.

This is how minor powers in a bureaucracy function. They restate the protocol, instead of solving the problem. It leads to a lot of emails. 

I thought about the culture of the farms I grew up on and the business I founded, London Farmers Markets. My parents didn’t handle things that way. We were taught to be sincere and direct, and to take responsibility for everything we did, down to the homeliest broken trowel.

Meanwhile, trash cans in the park overflow, flower beds are sprinkled with needles, my young friends walk through an active drug market on the way to school, and by four in the afternoon a haze of smoke from the illegal burning of incense, cigarettes, and marijuana hovers over this storied square.

Eventually, I made other arrangements. I pick up litter on our street, on the surrounding blocks, and sometimes in Washington Square, when the dog takes me there. Collecting litter is much like washing baby bottoms. It’s low-skill, repetitive, necessary, and unglamorous. It gives me time to think about human activity, consumption, and waste; about who has time to tend to things, and those who can’t even tend to themselves; and about who cares for gardens they don’t own.

It's not pretty, looking at trash. Sometimes I think of professionals, known as ragpickers in India, sadly many of them children, who scamper over landfills. When I see a bottle of yellow water, tightly capped, I think of the taxi drivers on a 12 hour shift who have no place to pee. Mostly I think of the stuff I buy and eat and drop and waste. No matter what I’m picking up, I feel lucky.

One rainy day I reached for a white tissue. Tissues on concrete are hard to pick up. There’s nothing to grab, and they dissolve in bits. Scraping it first one way, then the other, I suddenly gripped a stem. It was not a piece of tissue. It was a lovely white pansy with a violet center. Worker’s compensation.