A marriage made in heaven, no? I embody both a deep understanding of, love and respect for, ASL/Deaf Culture and the Principles of Unschooling. Both represent incredible passions woven deeply into my Life's Experience. Why am I not interpreting at this weekend's unschooling conference?
In total honesty I can say it's purely because my energy was focused on how the whole situation should be instead of working with how it is and what can be done right now.
My thoughts were stuck in a 20 year old mire. A happy-memory-filled mire, yes, still not a productive place for my current energy to be invested. See, 20 years ago I was an interpreter at CSUN, specializing in the Engineering Department. When an opportunity came along for a student to attend a NASA conference in Cleveland, OH, I was first picked to go. My willingness to work translated to: Round-trip airfare, hotel room, $50/day meal allowance, $200 per diem for 4 hours of interpreting maximum. The rest of the time there was my own. The conference paid for local interpreters to do the jobs I didn't want to do (I picked fun stuff, like the NASA tour & famous engineering braniacs talking about topics that interested me).
So when I was asked to do an unschooling event, I was rearing to go! I checked local laws and found out how to align legally and ethically. And I pondered the pay issue. It is unethical for an interpreter to volunteer for a job that would normally be a source of income for another. I cannot undercut the local interpreters, nor can I sell my profession short, by offering my services for considerably less money than it's *worth.* And right now, in North Carolina, it's worth about $40/hour, portal to portal from the nearest city - at least an hour away.
There's an internal processing called for here... is it about the money? is it about the service? is it about the message? is it about our professional standing as a whole? What is my priority?
We live in a society, right or wrong, that uses cash value as an easy marker for actual worth. The cash value offered to me for my professional work was approximately $800. For 4 days of very intense, long houred, interpreting & facilitating communications.
My mind got totally caught on the thought "I'm not willing to take a pay cut that deep!"
I negotiated. I begged. I even put our Love Machine on craig's list to sell. Mostly because, even without the monetary value, the event holds incredible emotional value to me. Emotional Value cannot be measured and held up as *worth.*
What I really wanted was to be valued for what I was capable of bringing. I was really stuck in "It's not worth another $400 to get me there? REALLY?!"
And in reality it wasn't. It's not.
And in the here and now, I'm okay. I'm sure the event is okay. Life is good and all is as it should be.
In total honesty I can say it's purely because my energy was focused on how the whole situation should be instead of working with how it is and what can be done right now.
My thoughts were stuck in a 20 year old mire. A happy-memory-filled mire, yes, still not a productive place for my current energy to be invested. See, 20 years ago I was an interpreter at CSUN, specializing in the Engineering Department. When an opportunity came along for a student to attend a NASA conference in Cleveland, OH, I was first picked to go. My willingness to work translated to: Round-trip airfare, hotel room, $50/day meal allowance, $200 per diem for 4 hours of interpreting maximum. The rest of the time there was my own. The conference paid for local interpreters to do the jobs I didn't want to do (I picked fun stuff, like the NASA tour & famous engineering braniacs talking about topics that interested me).
So when I was asked to do an unschooling event, I was rearing to go! I checked local laws and found out how to align legally and ethically. And I pondered the pay issue. It is unethical for an interpreter to volunteer for a job that would normally be a source of income for another. I cannot undercut the local interpreters, nor can I sell my profession short, by offering my services for considerably less money than it's *worth.* And right now, in North Carolina, it's worth about $40/hour, portal to portal from the nearest city - at least an hour away.
There's an internal processing called for here... is it about the money? is it about the service? is it about the message? is it about our professional standing as a whole? What is my priority?
We live in a society, right or wrong, that uses cash value as an easy marker for actual worth. The cash value offered to me for my professional work was approximately $800. For 4 days of very intense, long houred, interpreting & facilitating communications.
My mind got totally caught on the thought "I'm not willing to take a pay cut that deep!"
I negotiated. I begged. I even put our Love Machine on craig's list to sell. Mostly because, even without the monetary value, the event holds incredible emotional value to me. Emotional Value cannot be measured and held up as *worth.*
What I really wanted was to be valued for what I was capable of bringing. I was really stuck in "It's not worth another $400 to get me there? REALLY?!"
And in reality it wasn't. It's not.
And in the here and now, I'm okay. I'm sure the event is okay. Life is good and all is as it should be.
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