Burned Out By the PIRG

I realize that there actually isn’t a lot I can say about the job experience itself, because a lot of what I would describe would give much of it away.  As much as it would add to the story, I’m not going to risk calling anyone out (but boy, would I love to).  So let’s just get down to brass tacks.

As a campus organizer, you’re expected in the first week and often second week to run a massive recruitment drive – bringing students in to volunteer and/or intern on the different StudentPIRG campaigns and attend the “Kickoff Meeting”, or “General Interest Meeting (GIM)”.  Tabling in a student center was the most effective way of reaching out to students – many other student organizations at the campus would do the same thing.  The other tactics included class raps, which basically consisted of interrupting a class to talk about the PIRG chapter and have students fill out an interest card, and phonebanking ALL of the contacts you made during recruitment to get them to say yes to volunteering for an event and attending the GIM meeting.

I do agree with the PIRG on this principle – the sooner you reach out to someone who signs up to volunteer, the better.  This is a fundamental of every successful campaign.  But for one single organizer to implement with students who were just learning the ropes, it was exhausting.

There was a script for every kind of interaction possible – from speaking to classes, to phonebanking, to training students to table, to training them on how to communicate.  There were so many methods that I often forgot exactly what it was that we were doing this for.

The campus organizer is also expected to run an internship program, complete with a weekly class – a great incentive to get students involved in leadership positions (and get course credit!) on the three plus campaigns you were expected to run in a semester.  This did take a lot of weight off my back, but don’t you worry – if my staff director saw me being able to take a step back, there was always some other thing to do.

What’s not mentioned in the job description is that in addition to worrying about your campus and students – you’re expected to play a role in recruiting future entry-level PIRG staff.  We’d be assigned to another campus – curiously not our own – and expected to “ID”, if not stalk – dozens of potential staff by researching Facebook profiles, student organizations on campus, and so on.

And let’s not forget the best part of all – when students on campus go on break for the summer, you’re expected to be a canvass director for those three or so months.  Oh joy!  Throughout the year, you’re also expected to squeeze in ten days of door-to-door or street canvassing, which is intended to train you for the summer.  Are you serious?  That’s really enough time for someone with no fundraising experience to be ready to run their own canvass?

In many cases, my colleagues struggled to find summer housing and worry about the rent for their current living situation because they were asked to run a canvass in a completely different city.  Many people would end up semi-homeless for that entire summer, crashing on couches or in the canvass office.  Lucky for me, I didn’t stick it out for the summer.

I mentioned this before – don’t let PIRG fool you when they say “Oh, well we’re activists – we’re not here to make a lot of money!”  But PIRG is a massive organization, if you weren’t able to figure that out already.  They subsist on a massive canvassing operation of regular donors, and get quite a lot of grant money from federal and local benefactors and foundations.  If I had been working for a small, truly grassroots organization, I would have understood the pay cut.  But these guys are not lacking in funds.

PIRG takes advantage of an entry level worker’s naivete – they advertise the starting salary right around 23,750 – but in the first year, much of that salary is your “health earnings” which go to paying your premium.  Though this is common practice at many other organizations and companies, it’s not very clear until you receive the first paycheck.  So you don’t walk home with much in your bank account.

The PIRG also funds an almost fully subsidized vacation in Aspen close to Christmas.  For a week, you get free housing, food, and discounted activities at the resort.  In your first year on staff, you cannot use your vacation time until the completion of your first year, so you could “borrow” time to go to Aspen.   Sure, Aspen itself was awesome and debaucherous.  But couldn’t the money they spend on this be better off somewhere else?   I’m pretty sure they do Aspen to ensure everyone takes the same time off.  Forget about seeing your family – you can get drunk and screw your co-workers in Aspen!

Having worked as an intern with other organizations and in a legislative office – I was already prepared for this line of work being much more than the standard 40 hours a week.  After a while, I found it egregiously insulting by how much responsibility I was asked to take on by my staff director and how little I was receiving in compensation.  60 hours was a slow week – 75 was the standard.  When I wrote the director of one of my summer internships for an organization that did similar constituent and legislative organizing as PIRG, she was aghast and concerned for my well-being.  “Having the chance to take on leadership and responsibility in an entry level job is not something you come across that often.  But what you’re expected to do is just ridiculous.”