Greenpeace IV: part 3 - the Law of Halves

when we're petitioning we try to estimate the number of petitions in order to get a certain number of people ...say... to come to a meeting. you get 192 petitions signed - about half of those (96) will have phone numbers - about half of these numbers you'll be able to make contact with aperson (48) - of these, 24 will actionally talk to you. 12 people will say they'll come (to the meeitng). 6 will actually show up.

(ok, pause it. remember the scene in fight club where "jack" (ed norton) is on the plane telling an older woman the calculation that his insurance company uses to determine the safety rating of a car? (as we view a car that's been burnt to a crisp and listen to the workers joke about how the fat burned to the seat would be a good modern art exhibit...) "if a x b x c = x, and x is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one." (are there a lot of these kinds of accidents? // you wouldn't believe) and she's like 'what car company do you work for?' and he says "a major one." i feel kinda like that about this law of halves calculation. just to set the scene.)

that makes sense, right? i can get (at low estimates) about 15 petitions signed in an hour - so it would take 10 of us just over an hour to get 192. this system of numbers is one of the main things we base our days around. the law of halves is something we almost live by as organizers. //this// is why i don't want to be an organizer. 10 people just spent about an hour and a half talking to more than 200 people and we end up forging 6 relationships where people are interested in coming to a fun event with free food. we 'accost' people in the street, see if we can grab their interest with one line ( i.e. "got a second for the environment?" (which i've never used, because i don't think "the environment" exists like that. that's perhaps a longer story) or "have you / are you interested / heard of global warming?" "would you like to sign a petition?" (said as you offer them a clipboard), etc.), get them to sign a piece of paper while encouraging them to write their phone number and check the box that says "i'm interested in volunteering" while saying "don't worry, we won't contact you in any way unless you check that box" and bating them with credit from the volutneer office at their school (yeah, we actually hooked that up). there. that's what i do most of the day. then...after we get back to the hotel, we count up all the checked boxes (notice: checked boxes...these are our volunteer's phone numbers.), divide them up and everyone starts calling people to see if they'll volunteer (we call this phonebanking).

i realize i'm being cynical and overly negative about this stuff. perhaps a bit overdramatic about it with the fight club scene. i guess i should admit that i don't //completely// loathe it. we do reach a lot of people and at least share the idea of global warming with some people who have never heard about it. we are making progress with the candidates, too. ron klein (the democrat) finally said he'd agree to the waxman safe climate act, the "global warming legislation" currently up for disscusison. jon (our leader/teacher/etc) and jack also got interviewed by the media. (oh, and i'd also like to semi-reationalize my cynicism by saying that maybe it's just a misguided questioning of the status quo/system/the man)