ANST - Re: Rude Laurel?

C. L. Ward gunnora at realtime.net
Sat Jun 3 09:22:07 PDT 2000


Innes said:
>Take me to task if you will,  however never, I say, never will I sit idly
>by when someone attacks as Gunorra did Lady Mara,  all I suggested
>is that she reread the original missive and get the facts straight.
>
>I say again  Gunorras reaction was as bad as beheading the messenger
>who brought the bad news.

Innes, you are wrong here.  I certainly did not attack Mara.  I *did*
suggest, strongly, that she could have handled the incident better, and
gave a bunch of suggestions as to how she might could have done that.  It
can't fix the incident in question, but perhaps she, or others who read
this information, might try it out if they run into conflicts in the future
and get better results.

While I'm at it, let me make a few suggestions on your note.  You'd have
done better to have spoken to me off list, telling me what exactly it was
about my post that you disagreed with, and telling me what you wanted me to
do differently in the future.

What's you've basically done is said you didn't like my post.  You didn't
explain why, nor did you make suggestions for improvement.  If you want
people to change, you should point out specifics and suggest alternatives.

In this case, I respectfully disagree with your base premise that I was
attacking Mara.  I am however willing to discuss it with you further.  I
did misread -- on my first pass through I had misunderstood and thought
that she'd said it was a Laurel acting badly, to which I responded, and
I've already posted an apology for the misreading.  The rest of what I
said, though, is entirely valid.

To recap -- *always* politely try to talk to a person with whom you are
having a problem *before* you take the complaint elsewhere.  By "elsewhere"
I mean any of: gossiping about the situation to others, slandering the
person, attacking them in the court of public opinion (such as on this
list), complaining to their superiors or peers.  Once you've tried talking
to the person, if you do not successfully resolve the problem, try a
mediator, a third party who can sit down with you and the problem person
and try to help you discuss it.  If none of that works or the person
refuses, then start escalating it up one level at a time - their immediate
superior as an officer, a member of their community within the SCA, the
peers.  If that doesn't work go up a level -- superior officers, the Crown
or other nobility, etc.

It is truly amazing how much problem solving can be done on that first
discussion that I'm urging people to have.  In my experience, 90% of the
time when I've talked to a person about a problem they've apologized or
remedied the problem in some way without further recourse.  And politely,
without nastiness.  I promise that talking to people this way isn't
painful, and it has the potential to do so much good for very little effort.

::GUNNORA::
mailto:gunnora at realtime.net

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