I rage quit my professional association

[larryc]

Wait, this is an organization with 10k members and it is that wildly disorganized? Holy shit.

I guess my national org is the American Historical Association, but in reality, it is a largely irrelevant and sometimes embarrassing club for a declining number of elderly R1 professors. This is a tragedy because history desperately needs a national advocate and there is not one because the AHA is occupying that space but not doing the work. But anyway it claims to have 11,000 members and seems better organized than your group, though I might be mistaken.

[lightning]

the gigantic zoo that is the national organization

The gigantic zoo is an excellent description of the org I left!

The MLA conference is like a dog park without separate areas for the large and small dogs.

The small dogs are forced to play together with the large dogs, so the large dogs can feel more dominant. I thought that's what these Humanities conferences were really for--for the dinosaurs and younger academic celebrities to feel good about themselves, with all the wannabes kissing ass to them.

[Wahoo Redux]

the gigantic zoo that is the national organization

The gigantic zoo is an excellent description of the org I left!

The MLA conference is like a dog park without separate areas for the large and small dogs.

The small dogs are forced to play together with the large dogs, so the large dogs can feel more dominant. I thought that's what these Humanities conferences were really for--for the dinosaurs and younger academic celebrities to feel good about themselves, with all the wannabes kissing ass to them.

Not really.  I will say that I have actually ridden in cars with some pretty big dogs, and they have all been pretty nice people.  I was actually on two different panels as a grad student at MLA, still learning the territory, and didn't realize I was sitting next to a couple of Saint Bernards on those occasions.  I actually caught one fella walking down the aisle of this surprisingly large conference room, noticed his name tag, and said, "Oh hi, Fido, I'm Wahoo Redux and I'm on your panel."  He gave me the nicest smile and a nerdy little handshake.  It turns out he was a professor at one of the elite colleges, and most of the 90+ people that piled into the room were there to hear him speak; dude couldn't have been sweeter.

The MLA is simply an organization that does not do very much as its mother-discipline withers. 

[apl68]

One thing about the library profession is that people don't try to high-hat their fellow professionals.  Some years ago, as a still newish director of a small-town public, I met the director of the previous year's ALA "Library of the Year" at a conference.  She didn't run a huge library system, but it was an order of magnitude larger and more sophisticated than ours.  And it was, justly, recognized as a leader in the public library field. 

She invited me to come check out her place sometime when I had the chance.  Months later I did.  She spent most of a day showing the little librarian from the sticks around, taking me to lunch, introducing me to members of her staff, and talking shop.  I went home with my head stuffed with all sorts of ideas, some of which we were actually able to try here on a smaller scale.  I don't know of any other profession where something like that might happen.

[foralurker]

Wait, this is an organization with 10k members and it is that wildly disorganized? Holy shit.

I guess my national org is the American Historical Association

Yeah. I was going to compare it to AHA in my original post because it's about similar in size. It's an org concerned with a subfield of education. (Not AERA)

[foralurker]

She invited me to come check out her place sometime when I had the chance.  Months later I did.  She spent most of a day showing the little librarian from the sticks around, taking me to lunch, introducing me to members of her staff, and talking shop.  I went home with my head stuffed with all sorts of ideas, some of which we were actually able to try here on a smaller scale.  I don't know of any other profession where something like that might happen.

That was a much needed smile today. Thanks for sharing this with us, apl68! That's what these organizations should be about.

[lightning]

I rage quit my main professional association, about ten years ago, because too many people were glorifying themselves and not enough people were actually doing any work to support the organization. Five years ago, I went back, after a bigwig asked me to give the organization another chance.

It has been a lot better since my first tour of duty because more people are involved with the heavy lifting. (There was a major re-organization and complete replacement of the BOD and committee chairs, while I was away.) However, I sometimes feel like I should have stayed away. They need me much more than I need them, and it's my belief that the best movers and shakers for professional academic organizations are the ones where the organization and the leaders need each other.

I'm on the verge of quitting my professional association, again. It's the same-old-same-old: too few people doing most of the work, while many others, especially the big names don't do jack s**t, then show up to the conference and act all bigwig. Fvck this.

[poiuy]

I'm on the verge of quitting my professional association, again. It's the same-old-same-old: too few people doing most of the work, while many others, especially the big names don't do jack s**t, then show up to the conference and act all bigwig. Fvck this.

If you are not getting much or any professional mileage out of your professional association, then by all means quit.  Why should you give them your membership$, time, energy?
If you are getting some professional mileage, then do a cost-benefit analysis. Are you tenured and promoted? Then by all means exit. If you are not, then is there any other, better organization for you? If yes, go there. If no, then maybe it will benefit you to stick around a while longer till you don't need them any more.

[lightning]

I'm on the verge of quitting my professional association, again. It's the same-old-same-old: too few people doing most of the work, while many others, especially the big names don't do jack s**t, then show up to the conference and act all bigwig. Fvck this.

If you are not getting much or any professional mileage out of your professional association, then by all means quit.  Why should you give them your membership$, time, energy?
If you are getting some professional mileage, then do a cost-benefit analysis. Are you tenured and promoted? Then by all means exit. If you are not, then is there any other, better organization for you? If yes, go there. If no, then maybe it will benefit you to stick around a while longer till you don't need them any more.

I'm at the end of the line in terms of job title. I can't go any higher unless I go for an endowed chair, and I'm not interested in an endowed chair.

I've been doing it, still, out of a sense of obligation. The obligation is to the up-and-comers who need the organization and its activities to thrive, so they can find success in their own careers. The organization was central to my career success, and I feel that I owe it to the younglings. My career success would have been impossible if it were not for the established scholars who went out of their way to keep the organization thriving, so I could climb the ladder, too.

There does come a point where I have to figure out if my debt has been paid and to walk away when it has been paid off.  IOW, have I put in enough time, effort, and emotional energy to equal what was done by the previous established scholars and organization leaders, when I needed the organization to thrive so I could thrive?

I think I've reached that point.