Working Where I Live

By Abby Fullem

There was a project keeping me up at night. It centered around a nearby town’s debate over banning or not banning artificial turf for sports fields. Artificial turf is a source of PFAS (also known as forever chemicals) that can have negative physical and environmental effects, but, when used as a sports field, can allow for increased seasonal playing time in a town with limited field space. The issue has become increasingly tense, in that contemporary way. Name-calling is rampant on Facebook, protests are planned, and I’m getting a lot of phone calls. I can’t seem to get away from this debate; I hear about it everywhere. I book an acupuncture appointment to help with the physical toll of the stress. I’m looking forward to zoning out on the table. 

Finally, I’m at the appointment, and things are going well. My acupuncturist—gifted, calm—asks how I’m doing. I mention my work stress and describe the tense project. She stops me: it turns out that she lives in this neighboring town. She has, I learn, a lot of opinions about artificial turf and the youth sports programming, opinions that she excitedly shares with me. Thus, ends whatever hope I’ve had for getting away from it all. 

That was not my favorite acupuncture appointment, but the truth is that I don’t want to get away from it all. I enjoy working where I live, and doing so has improved my work. This may seem surprising to some. In the alternative dispute resolution field, there was initially a belief that facilitators and mediators need to be neutral parties, with no possible biases, no stake in the outcome of a process. Working where you live, according to that belief, could be challenging because you’d have to eliminate your personality and preferences in the place where you’re a full person, have relationships, and have a full life. 

Luckily, the field has evolved. We understand that no human being can be inhumanly “neutral,” and that pretending to an impossible neutrality can let biases seep in unacknowledged. We also know that facilitators can, in fact, navigate challenges more deftly and creatively when we bring more of ourselves to the work and relate to parties as people first (something we try to foster in negotiations and public processes). I’ve found that this happens more naturally when I live where I work—when, for instance, I might work with stakeholders who also have seen me playing a trumpet in the local street brass band or jogging on the community bike path.

This is not to dismiss all challenges that come from working where you live, particularly in situations where there could be a conflict of interest. But there’s a simple solution for this challenge: I do not work on local projects in which I have a stake in a specific solution. On projects (local or not) for which I’m not directly affected or do not have a specific, desired outcome, I instead have a desire for a really durable and wise outcome that is based on credible and legitimate information, and is attentive to the highest-priority interests of all stakeholders. This is fundamental for my work as a third-party mediator and facilitator, in which my commitment is to the best possible collaborative process. I want to live in a community that works for everyone who lives here: I have a stake in building a community—and a society—where people work together better, productively, regardless of any specific decision.  

I’ve also come to appreciate how much my work benefits from working with stakeholders in different capacities. I take on multiple projects in my region on interrelated topics: stormwater, climate, housing, and active transportation, which means I interact with many of the same government agencies and staff, community-based organizations, business associations, scientists, and other stakeholders. This spring, I worked on two stormwater-related projects simultaneously, and my municipal client from one project was a stakeholder in the other. This reinforces my commitment to integrity—to developing an equitable process, to saying what I mean and doing what I say. Knowing people will encounter us in different circumstances sharpens our attention to consistency and fairness.

Working where I live also allows me to bring my full self to my work, which encourages others to do the same, helping us all work together as humans, first. And—outside of work—it in turn makes me a better community member, because I’m more engaged in the city and can understand the perspectives of others here. So I’ll take my acupuncturist telling me about artificial turf, I’ll take running into a City Councilor at a dance party, and I’ll take the heightened pressure to work with maximum integrity, because it all results in something so much better, in my community life and in my work.