Start an Orbit

You don’t read the bylaws before you walk out. A coworker you trust leans over and says “we’re meeting about the schedule—you in?” and you’re in. Starting an Orbit is that, hardened. Here’s how to go from pissed-off to organized.

1. Find your one grievance

An Orbit needs a single, concrete thing it exists to fix. Not “capitalism” — something you could win: the surprise schedule changes, the broken AC on the line, the rent hike, the missing hazard pay. Specific enough that everyone in the room feels it in the same place.

2. Find your first three to five people

Start with people you already trust—not the loudest, not the most online. The person who covers your shift. The one who noticed the same thing you did. Keep it small. You are not recruiting a crowd; you are forming a cell. Trust is built face to face, at human speed, where no platform is listening.

3. Keep names out of the machine

Before you coordinate digitally, understand the rule that protects everyone: the system never asks for your real name, and neither should you. No spreadsheet of members. No group chat on the boss’s platform. The deaf server is built so the guest list never exists in readable form—don’t recreate one by hand.

4. Hold the first meeting

Your first meeting has exactly three jobs:

• Name the grievance out loud, together, so it’s shared and not just yours.
• Assign the three rotating roles—facilitator, logkeeper, sentinel (add a treasurer only if you’ll handle money). See Roles & Rotation.
• Pick one small, winnable first action—a question to ask management, a petition, a single coordinated request.

Walk through it step by step in Run Your First Meeting.

5. Log it and set the clock

The logkeeper records the decisions in the transparency log. Roles are now on a thirty-day timer. Nobody is president. Nobody is permanent. You just built a small republic.

When you outgrow the room

The day your Orbit pushes past twenty-five people, don’t build a hierarchy — split into two Orbits and federate. That’s not failure; it’s the design. See What Is an Orbit.

The only thing the people who own everything can’t buy is a neighbor who’s got your back when the sheriff shows up. Start there.