Jessie X

I’ve spoken several times, with a friend of mine, about the value of being involved in Columbia’s time banking system. Today, said friend agreed to check time banking out. This is the email I just got from this person, posted here with permission. The short version (and my translation): Yo, CA.

***

True to my word, I just looked into enrolling into time-banking. This
IMO is definitely harder than it needs to be:

1. First I looked on your blog. I don’t recall seeing any direct links
to enrollment forms, other information sources, etc. You did have some
podcasts, but to be honest, I find it’s more efficient to read text; I
can get in a few seconds what would otherwise take several minutes to
learn.

2. Then I googled for “time-banking”, and found timebanks.org. They
don’t have an enrollment form, but refer you to a directory of
organizations supporting time-banking. For MD they list CA, but the
link is to the main CA site, not to anything specific about
time-banking. There’s an email address and phone number, but again,
more time and trouble to compose an email or make a phone call.

3. Finally I googled for “time-banking columbia association” and found
the Columbia Community Exchange page. There I’m apparently supposed to
read six (!) separate documents, all in PDF format (yet another PITA
– why aren’t these plain HTML pages?).

4. Now I’ve got a 6-page enrollment form, 4 pages of which I’ve got to
fill out by hand (!) or on a typewriter (like who has one of those
anymore), followed by 2 pages of legalese put in there by the lawyers
for CA and/or TimeBanks USA.

5. And finally I’m supposed to attend an in-person orientation — I
mean really, is the concept that hard to explain? (I know I can myself
can streamline the process because I know you, but what of the typical
person?)

I’ll happily fill in the form, but I can’t help thinking that this
bears all the hallmarks of an over-bureaucratized approach to the
problem. If it’s true that time-banking works best when done among
friends or FOAFs then I think it would make much more sense to do this
organically in a social network-style manner: someone invites their
friends to participate in the scheme, they invite others, new people
get in only based on approval of existing members, and so on.
Everything gets done online in a single location, you never have to
fill out paper form, and the only legalese is a simple “I promise not
to sue” waiver.

It seems as if the current system is shaped in response to the desires
and fears of the organizational sponsors, not in response to the needs
of the people doing the time-banking.

Anyway, end of rant.