Are you sure she didn't say "not aesthetically pleasing"?

After having retired from my post as vice president of SEA, I decided that I would lay off of the organized environmental action for a while. As much as I felt like my efforts with SEA were the right thing for the university, they really burned me out… and not just because certain other members of our leadership were more than a little crazy. It really exhausted me to know that my argument was correct, that my documentation was complete, but to be unable to convince the people in charge. And so the plan was to do the things that I can do personally to be more sustainable and to be supportive to those who were involved in making change happen, but to stay out of the process myself. The plan failed. Massively. I was recently drafted as the student member on a newly formed faculty committee whose mission statement is really vague, but seems to include sustainability of things related to energy and land use, recycling, and public outreach and education. We spent the first meeting trying to name ourselves. We failed, but remained hopeful. The second meeting was today. The first thing we discussed was recycling. The chair of the recycling subcommittee said, “[An administrator who shall remain nameless] said that recycling bins are unsightly.” I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. I had tried to convince myself that maybe this would be better because it’s a faculty committee that actually carries some weight or because this is an environmental lab where everybody is on board with sustainability. I was wrong. Every single item on the agenda was about another argument that I’ve had before and lost. I’m still trying to remain positive. I’ve volunteered to help with some of the things that seem like they might actually be productive, but it sure does seem like “it’s not one damn thing after another, it’s the same damn thing over and over.”