Survey?

I went and took the T.W.O. Neighbor survey on Saturday and quickly realized that it may not have been targeted for the working professional.

Then of course I may be wrong.

A vast majority of the questions were aimed at pinpointing employment skill sets.

Do you have a trade? Have you ever been a home health care worker? Do you have office skills?

In light of my looming unemployment, these questions are very pertinent.

Nonetheless I was surprised at not only the skill set questions but the questions concerning the neighborhood quality of life issues, general quality of life issues and affordable housing.

When a list of questions was ticked off about neighborhood concerns and retail and/or services wasn’t among them I found it odd.

I finished the survey and received a $10.00 Target gift card.

That came right on time as I just ran out of laundry detergent.

I mentioned to my friend that in my opinion it seemed that none of the questions were geared toward professionals or the non-existent retail presence in Woodlawn.

He listened and said, “That’s because they want to know about the potential pool of workers in the neighborhood.”

I sat stunned by his assessment.

When I asked why this survey was commissioned and what it hoped to achieve, I was given a stock answer of “community improvement.”

How this information was going to improve the community or what was going to be done with it wasn’t clearly defined or explained.

In fact I couldn’t get any information about the services that the T.W.O. was running out of the former all girls’ Catholic school next door to my building or a contact name for that matter.

When I commented that since Rev. Finney’s church left a few years ago, the upkeep of the property has been questionable at best, I was referred to my alderman and city services.

If you’re thinking what I was thinking at the time---I was a bit amazed by the answer as well.

And now that I’m thinking about it---I didn’t get a chance to interface with my neighbors.

As you came in and signed the sign-in sheet, the survey was administered by a T.W.O. volunteer/representative so you never got to kibbutz with anyone else.

What’s the point of holding a neighbor open house if you don’t get to say hey to the neighbors?

Very curious, no?

So it looks like T.W.O. may not be advocating for a dry cleaner for the eastern part of Woodlawn anytime soon.