The Insidious Nature of Contacts

The opportunities offered in Girl Scouts can be a wonderful thing. Girls are taught confidence, leadership, team work. We're supported in our interests and encouraged to try new things. Some of my fondest memories revolve around activities and people and locations connected with Girl Scouts.

But Girl Scouts is funny, too. For such a large organization, it's also an insular little world. I can move away from my childhood council, return eight years later, and still be known as Eileen's Daughter. I can travel to Germany, work at a Girl Scout Camp, hear the tales and survive the insanity, and return to learn that the people I worked with know people who know people who volunteer with the people I work with. (And if you followed that, you have a career in Girl Scouts ahead of you, my friend.) Such a noble nonprofit, with such lofty but worthy goals; but it's still about networking and who you know. I shouldn't be surprised by this. It's common enough in the world outside Girl Scouts, and I'm quite familiar being labeled by my connections in this regular life. I'm Pastor Mike's Daughter, and AUMC's secretary, and Abby's (or Kristine, or Julie's) sorority sister. I was a Mills Student, and now a Humboldt Graduate. I'm Brian's co-worker; Brian is Courtney's roommate, and Courtney is the daughter and niece of teachers in Santa Cruz. Courtney was a Girl Scout, and just this last week we discovered we'd been at the same World Center within two days of each other, way back in 1999. If I ever want a job...

It always comes back to one or the other: Girl Scouts or the Church.

I'm not complaining. I'm fully pragmatic enough to understand the benefits and politics of networking. Sometimes I even enjoy it.

But sometimes I wonder, who would I be without the "oh, you know ______,too?"s.