The metro steals my money; I ride it anyway/the big First Day

Going from a 0-hour work day to an 8-hour day is strange. And mentally exhausting. Fortunately, this isn't your average office job. Queers for Economic Justice consists of just one large room on the 10th floor of a building on W. 32nd street (which I successfully traveled to!). It sounds impressive to say I met with Executive Director Kenyon Farrow for half an hour, except that the whole organization doesn't usually staff more than 12 people, and Kenyon is friendly with all of them - including the other two interns.



It's a small organization, but fierce. There isn't a time clock because staffers are expected to get whatever needs to be done, done - and Kenyon said that most people end up working more than their allotted hours to do that. All of the people there fascinate me. I wonder (shout out to Crossing Borders) about all the different ways they identify, and the why they're at QEJ. They exude coolness and New York City-ness, but not in the apathetic, the-world-sucks-and-I'm-cooler-than-you-way - in the passionate, effortless way. The good news is that they are a welcoming bunch. Some of them even hugged me goodbye.

I'm going to backtrack, because this should probably be more linear. The day started with Michelle, one of the directors of the Welfare Warriors Research Project. She brought me up to speed. Apparently, welfare used to be this great social tool - well, an adequate social tool - that everyone could use for as long as they needed to do so. Then, a law passed that Michelle, QEJ and much of the social justice war fought bitterly against. This law put restrictions on welfare, so that it became incredibly difficult to obtain welfare and keep it as long as necessary. QEJ has been working for the last three years to create a multi-dimensional report on the conditions of low-income LGBTQ people dealing with the welfare and shelter systems, so that some systematic change can come to public services. They've recorded group dialogues that met for those three years, completed hundreds of hours of interviews, and done a survey of roughly 200 people.

The project didn't have a deadline until about a month ago, when QEJ decided they wanted it done by the 2010 Creating Change Conference. That's in three weeks, conveniently the same amount of time I spend with them. And apparently I won't just be a research assistant. Michelle took me over to her office at the CUNY and had me complete a requisite course on the ethics of research with people as subjects. When I went to label myself as such, she told me to change it to "Co-Investigator." That's right, I'm an investigator. It sounds pretty badass.




Along with the ethics lesson, I asked Michelle about this blog. She told me that due to the sensitivity of the material, I shouldn't publish any of the individual stories I read or hear. If I have any emotional reactions to them - which is likely - I can talk to her or some of the other people in the office, but they want to release the information strategically and without the risk of breaching anonymity.

I spent the rest of the day coding open-ended questions on the survey, which hurt my eyes but felt satisfying. This opening data is about where low-income LGBTQ people have trouble with the system, if they fight back and where they find support. I identified trends - i.e. for fighting back, "did research", "gave up", "went to a different organization" and then put them into Excel. Soon I'll move on to transcribing group sessions and interviews, which I'm excited to do.

The day passed so quickly I didn't have time to call my bank. The following happened yesterday:
-The Metro offered a booth where I could purchase my month-long pass for $89
- The Metro claimed that my transaction could not be processed
-The Metro did not give me my month-long pass
-The Metro charged me for the month-long pass I did not receive.

EDIT: Chloe and Sophia (sophisticated NY friends) have informed me that the underground NY transportation system is better known as the subway. (In other words, saying "the metro" makes me look like a tool.)


FirstMerit, pull for me here. $89 is a lot of hours at the DeCafe.
I was stressed out, but my excellent hosts gave me brownies and tea in their beautiful home.

I haven't even gone into the intricacies of the work being done, but I don't think I can look at a computer screen much longer. The one thing I wish about the work is that it were less sedentary, but I suppose that's what the nighttime is for. Hopefully, I'll be less jumbled next time.