Reality check

Recent experiences have taught me a lot–way too late–about not just rider education but human nature and who I am. And it’s given me a lot of clarity about what’s been happening in my life lately.

Just over a week ago I was offered a job at a perfume company as an office manager. From the first interview, there were little things that seemed a bit off but I ignored them. After the second interview, there were red flags–but I ignored them as well. The biggest red flag was that questions were ridiculed–a bad sign for someone like me. But hey, I’ve been told by someone I trusted there’s no harm in living a charade. So I took the job. In fact, that’s one of the things they told us the first day, “act as if it’s true.”

Training began with learning about sales and marketing. To do that we were to sell at least 15 bottles of perfume. That wasn’t the problem–the problem was that it had to be done in less than 24 hours. Though we hadn’t even seen–let alone smelled these perfumes nor seen anything–even the order forms–that had the company’s name on it.  Not to mention the order form used not the knock-off names–there were no names on the bottles–but the trademarked names of the very expensive designer perfumes like Issey Miyake, White Diamonds and Emotions–the one that uses pheromones and is called “sex in a bottle”. We were given no information about the products, not even allowed to smell them or see them all. Nor any information on how to counter people’s objections that they were knock-offs. It felt so wrong-, but what did that matter?

But I swallowed my bile, determined to not ask the uncomfortable questions, not find out what was wrong and concentrate on what was right and stay employed. Be a passenger and do what they want, be what they want, and I would succeed. And I really needed a job so I was going to do it.

I came home that day to a comment on the Moonrider Redux site. She had read the entry about one of the bills and claimed her organization was behind the legislation. I have no reason to disbelieve her and am convinced she was utterly sincere and truly believed what she said. She also said she taught 184 students in 2008. In many ways I think what she said represents the vast majority of those in the rider ed community.

This woman did not like my entry on the bill at all. She took offense that I had gone through the bill and analyzed it. She accused me of a lot of things but she isn’t the first and won’t be the last nor was she the worst.

No, it was the substance of her e-mail that depressed the hell out of me–why she was fighting for the legislation: From what she said in her missive, it didn’t appear that she had either read the bill or she had read it and didn’t understand what it said or what it would allow or what it really would and wouldn’t do. For example, there had to be a state program, she said, “because people who weren’t certified were teaching others to ride and “are charging money for something that their students cannot receive benefit from.” No state program can stop that. And that’s just the least of the many naive things she wrote. Well-meaning, then, but ignorant.

She knew nothing abut training or rider ed or state programs but what the MSF spin-machine has pumped out. Yet she took me to task because I had done the research and brought up points that challenged that spin machine and made that available for people like her to be able to make informed decisions. As if merely presenting that there are other factors and interests and a long background at work is inherently destructive and wrong. As if, of course, the MSF spin story is the true one–and what I say must be wrong.

It seemed as if just the act of questioning–just like at the fragrance company–was seen to be inherently wrong. In fact, she wrote, “You would be so much more useful if you got up from the computer and worked towards safety” and that she, unlike me, did “real work!!! Work that saves lives and not cost lives!! Whatever problems you have with the MSF—don’t jeopardize those new riders and young riders that need some type of training!!! Stop being petty!!”

Iow, be a passenger–this time on the MSF bus–and succeed: Do “real work” for motorcycle safety. Pointing out that MSF has no non-industry oversight or accountability is irrelevant. Pointing out tat the training, in fact, puts new and young riders in jeporady isn’t “real work” Pointing out that the course is, in fact deady, is petty. Shut up, Wendy. Be a passenger on the MSF bus.

It’s not like others haven’t leveled the same charge at me. In fact, a couple years ago someone claiming they spoke for both TEAM Oregon and the Oregon Department of Justice took me to task during a phone call. I was harming Oregon’s case. I should shut up, not not publicize what the case was about or the evidence in Oregon’s favor. I should just let the court handle matters. No one needed to know what was going on or the history or anything. Just shut up because I was doing more harm than good. Get on the back, Wendy, and shut up.

He was someone I had no reason not to trust and many reasons to trust–and so I believed him and was devastated. It turned out he wasn’t speaking for TEAM Oregon nor the ODOJ at all–and it turned out he had close ties to MSF’s Oregon attorneyand lobbyist–the one who’s very words I had been publishing on the blog. Pure coincidence, I’m sure. So maybe that should be “$hut up, Wendy.”

I’ve heard that “Give in and get on the back, Wendy” a lot over the years: Recant and then you’ll get a paying job in the field you love so much. Like the time when someone I thought was a trusted friend basically offered me a corporate job, lots of money and benefits, lots of influence–just think of all the good I could do–and it could be mine if I only gave up the blog. He went on to rattle off several other reasons why continuing the blog was not in rider eds best interest: I wasn’t the one, I hadn’t been effective, I was preventing something from being done, if I left then another would arise if one was, indeed, meant to arise or anything to happen. All I had to do was stop writing the blog. Get on the back, Wendy. Shut up and get on the back.

And I thought about how some people blamed me that the old journalspace blog wasn’t more effective because of my tone–so I had changed the tone on the Moonrider Redux blog. But here’s this woman–and that Dave Halen–still thinking I’m bashing MSF. And then there was my friend who, when I was at a very low point, told me it was because the entries were too long–and I’ve done all I can to keep them short–to no avail either.

As I read that poor lady’s post right after I had come home from the funky-smelling fragrance job all that and more came to mind. I thought–they’re right. I’ve heard that in my personal life as well: it harms no one to live a charade. Just go along to get along. It doesn’t matter what you think is good for you–do what’s good for me or for my friend. Iow, be a passenger on my ride. And shut up back there.

But still, I went through the motions–I asked her to verify who she was and when I gave her the opportunity to answer questions about how that bill got before the legislature or other questions she refused to answer and told me–didn’t ask me–not to post her comment. And I didn’t and still haven’t even though once it’s submitted the author doesn’t have any control over what happens to it or how it’s used.

It’s a lesson I learned over a year ago. Because of cyberstalkers, I began censoring what I wrote and how I wrote it to protect others who, as it turned out, weren’t worthy of protection. I was, in a real way, a passenger in my own writing.

And that’s when it all came together–my life, my work for true motorcycle safety and my efforts to find a job. I had been down this passenger road before and it hadn’t worked for me. I had lived a lie, I had bent over and took whatever I was given.

I hadn’t thought I had become so much of a passenger again. I had to remember who I am and so I dug through my files and found that essay I had written years ago and posted it. It’s my line in the sand: I can’t go down that road again. I am a motorcycle.

And then I quit that smelly job that stank to high heavens. And after I did, I found out it was a bad, bad thing–sortof a cross between cult members selling flowers and a downscale multi-level marketing system. I was right–it was wrong.

Yes, I ask questions. That’s what I do. That’s what I’m good at. Those questions make some defensive–but it’s not asking questions that’s wrong. Yes, I challenge what people believe because they’ve accepted the easy, familiar answers. That’s their problem. Yes, I find illumination for greater issues in my life. That some take it personally is their problem.

But I won’t shut up. And I won’t live a charade. I am a motorcycle. I won’t give in. I am who I am. It’s my life and I ride in front. If you value that, then I’m happy to ride with you. If you don’t, bugger off–no one invited you after all.