Context
I sent out an e-mail to the staff of our Main Library today to let them know about a computer glitch we thought might affect patrons and taking responsibility on behalf of my department. The director of the library, being a nice guy, sent an e-mail back saying, "No one is to blame here." Then, because it was Friday afternoon, we got into a silly discussion of who really was to blame. We decided on the framers of the Constitution.
Commentary
OK, you had to be there. But I understand Dr. Heezen's intent, as it mirrors something I often say, "I'm not interested in assessing blame; I want to solve the problem." On the other hand, in order to prevent a problem from recurring it's often necessary to know who caused it in the first place. Plus I'm a firm believer, with Samuel Smiles, that a mistake is the best opportunity for learning on the planet.
So is there a way to get to get the benefits of assigning responsibility for errors without oppressing those guilty of them? There may be, if we stick to some basic principles:
1) Assessing responsibility is not the end of the story. It's the beginning of a process of improvement that ideally includes not just the person who made the error, but also anyone who can help her/him prevent it in the future, like a trainer, copy editor or beta tester (Yup, that's what we needed today!).
2) You cannot judge a person's character by one of his/her actions. A person who makes a mistake is not a screw-up, anymore than a person who drinks a glass of water is the ocean.
3) The person who bore the brunt of the consequences of a mistake may not be ideal for helping the person responsible recover. AA step 9 is to make amends to the people you've wronged, but you don't usually ask those people to be your sponsor. A disinterested third-party often brings a more solution-oriented perspective.
What did you see today?
Showing posts with label addiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label addiction. Show all posts
8/14/2009
7/17/2006
I saw the consequences of an oft-repeated mistake
Context
I have a variety of job duties at Shreve Memorial Library, which is not unusual for my profession. One of these is administrating our integrated library system. Another is training staff members on how to use it. Today I was informed that someone made a mistake on the system last Wednesday. The person who notified me stated in her e-mail that “everyone claims innocence,” but further pressing revealed that it was probably a third party who has made this error many times before. It’s possible that the only reason I was told about it was because the mistake in question requires my intervention before anyone at that particular branch can perform the same task. The fix took about 30 seconds, but because I’ve been on vacation, what should be a daily task at that branch has been left undone for five days. It took considerably longer than 30 seconds to compose an e-mail expressing my ire at this ongoing situation to the mistake-maker’s supervisor (a fourth party!).
Commentary
One of the ladies who attends my Quaker meeting thinks Jesus can’t have been perfect because He got mad at people. I disagree. I definitely think there’s such thing as righteous anger and that mine usually fits the criteria ;-).
Anyway, I hope my e-mail to the supervisor expressed the reason for my anger adequately. It’s a little irritating that the same mistake keeps being made over and over again, but what really burns my butt is not being told about it by the responsible party. Politically, I didn’t feel like I could confront the mistake-maker directly, so I was left to speculate on the reasons why she didn’t tell me about the problem herself. I came up with three:
1) She doesn’t think it’s a big enough problem to bother mentioning. As you can tell by this entry, she’s wrong. It’s a sufficient inconvenience to enough people to require immediate action.
2) She figures I’ll find out eventually from someone. Why should she lay herself on the line? I did find out about this eventually from someone, so she was right about that. On the other hand, she’s still smack in the middle of the situation, not because I want to blame someone, but because of necessity any solution to the problem will involve her.
3) She feels like she’s made this mistake so many times that we’ve used up every possible preventative. She’s wrong about that as well. I’m a professional trainer; I’ve always got another educational trick up my sleeve.
So this whole episode got me thinking about confession. Essentially, what I’m wanting from my coworker is what God wants from us: He wants us to admit that we’ve done wrong. Christians (well, everybody actually, but I know the Christian experience better than any other) have many reasons for not wanting to confess our sins to God. Or at least, three:
1) We don’t think the sin is big enough that we need to confess it. What’s a little lust in your heart as compared to bombing innocent children? The problem is, the sinner almost never has any idea of the magnitude of her sin or the effect it’s going to have on other people. We are all too inclined to let ourselves slide for actions we would find unacceptable in other people. Better to let an outside judge take a look at that error for us, I think.
2) God knows that we sin; it seems pointless to discuss it with Him. People use a similar reason for not offering prayers of petition: God knows what I need. Of course He does! In my experience, prayer of all types is not for the purpose of getting God’s attention. It’s to focus ours. In the case of confession, any twelve-step program will tell you that the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one.
3) We feel like it’s hopeless. We’ve been down the same path so many times before and nothing ever changes. Really? Nothing? In my experience, it’s never actually the same situation twice. Maybe this time I realize a split-second earlier that I’m doing wrong. Maybe this person calls me on it instead of suffering in silence like the last 29 have done. I’m not saying the changes are always pleasant or even appear positive. I am saying that if Lynn the trainer always has a trick up her sleeve, imagine what God must have in that big old white robe or whatever He wears?
What did you see today?
I have a variety of job duties at Shreve Memorial Library, which is not unusual for my profession. One of these is administrating our integrated library system. Another is training staff members on how to use it. Today I was informed that someone made a mistake on the system last Wednesday. The person who notified me stated in her e-mail that “everyone claims innocence,” but further pressing revealed that it was probably a third party who has made this error many times before. It’s possible that the only reason I was told about it was because the mistake in question requires my intervention before anyone at that particular branch can perform the same task. The fix took about 30 seconds, but because I’ve been on vacation, what should be a daily task at that branch has been left undone for five days. It took considerably longer than 30 seconds to compose an e-mail expressing my ire at this ongoing situation to the mistake-maker’s supervisor (a fourth party!).
Commentary
One of the ladies who attends my Quaker meeting thinks Jesus can’t have been perfect because He got mad at people. I disagree. I definitely think there’s such thing as righteous anger and that mine usually fits the criteria ;-).
Anyway, I hope my e-mail to the supervisor expressed the reason for my anger adequately. It’s a little irritating that the same mistake keeps being made over and over again, but what really burns my butt is not being told about it by the responsible party. Politically, I didn’t feel like I could confront the mistake-maker directly, so I was left to speculate on the reasons why she didn’t tell me about the problem herself. I came up with three:
1) She doesn’t think it’s a big enough problem to bother mentioning. As you can tell by this entry, she’s wrong. It’s a sufficient inconvenience to enough people to require immediate action.
2) She figures I’ll find out eventually from someone. Why should she lay herself on the line? I did find out about this eventually from someone, so she was right about that. On the other hand, she’s still smack in the middle of the situation, not because I want to blame someone, but because of necessity any solution to the problem will involve her.
3) She feels like she’s made this mistake so many times that we’ve used up every possible preventative. She’s wrong about that as well. I’m a professional trainer; I’ve always got another educational trick up my sleeve.
So this whole episode got me thinking about confession. Essentially, what I’m wanting from my coworker is what God wants from us: He wants us to admit that we’ve done wrong. Christians (well, everybody actually, but I know the Christian experience better than any other) have many reasons for not wanting to confess our sins to God. Or at least, three:
1) We don’t think the sin is big enough that we need to confess it. What’s a little lust in your heart as compared to bombing innocent children? The problem is, the sinner almost never has any idea of the magnitude of her sin or the effect it’s going to have on other people. We are all too inclined to let ourselves slide for actions we would find unacceptable in other people. Better to let an outside judge take a look at that error for us, I think.
2) God knows that we sin; it seems pointless to discuss it with Him. People use a similar reason for not offering prayers of petition: God knows what I need. Of course He does! In my experience, prayer of all types is not for the purpose of getting God’s attention. It’s to focus ours. In the case of confession, any twelve-step program will tell you that the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one.
3) We feel like it’s hopeless. We’ve been down the same path so many times before and nothing ever changes. Really? Nothing? In my experience, it’s never actually the same situation twice. Maybe this time I realize a split-second earlier that I’m doing wrong. Maybe this person calls me on it instead of suffering in silence like the last 29 have done. I’m not saying the changes are always pleasant or even appear positive. I am saying that if Lynn the trainer always has a trick up her sleeve, imagine what God must have in that big old white robe or whatever He wears?
What did you see today?
6/17/2006
I saw an article in the Texarkana Gazette
Context
I go to Quaker meeting in Texarkana, even though I live in Shreveport. Today someone brought a copy of the Texarkana Gazette to meeting, and it had an article about people protesting a home for recovering drug addicts being planned in their neighborhood. This is a quote from the article: “'I don’t know of anybody who really gets off drugs and they come with all that baggage and we don’t want that around our children,' said Sheila Oates, who lives on Stipp Lane not too far from the location."
Commentary
NIMBY-type protests strike me as the worst possible kind of hypocrisy, because the people involved almost always agree that the activity in question is necessary or even desirable, but they don’t want to have to live near it. They’re not anti-nuclear power; they’re pro-making someone else live with the consequences. I suppose I should be happy that some of the protesters in this case are at least being consistent enough to say they don't see any point in attempting to rehabilitate drug users anywhere.
I'm not happy, though. In fact, I find this case particularly irksome, because of something the members of my meeting keep hammering into my head: “everyone around here is a Christian.” The members of my meeting who are not Christian sometimes feel ostracized and persecuted because they don’t believe “correctly.” Or they just don’t bother to tell people and save themselves the grief. So we have a whole city full of Christians which includes at least one neighborhood where they don’t want to have to be around drug addicts. Interesting.
Now, don’t get me wrong. My Lutheran upbringing makes me a strong believer in “saved by grace through faith alone.” There is no action one can take (or not take) to ensure one’s salvation except believing in the Gospel. But I always hope for myself and my brothers and sisters in Christ that after we’ve been saved we will be of some benefit to the rest of the world. Rejecting people at the very moment when they’re trying to turn their lives around doesn’t seem beneficial to anyone, including the Christian children you’re trying to raise.
I think this is a hazard to being a Christian in the South. When being a Christian is the norm, then “normal” behavior, like shielding your children from people with problems, becomes equated with Christian behavior, so it doesn’t need to be examined or questioned. That’s one of the reasons I’m strongly in favor of the separation of church and state. Once we have a “Christian” government, then everything it does will be, by definition, Christian. Yeah, right.
What did you see today?
I go to Quaker meeting in Texarkana, even though I live in Shreveport. Today someone brought a copy of the Texarkana Gazette to meeting, and it had an article about people protesting a home for recovering drug addicts being planned in their neighborhood. This is a quote from the article: “'I don’t know of anybody who really gets off drugs and they come with all that baggage and we don’t want that around our children,' said Sheila Oates, who lives on Stipp Lane not too far from the location."
Commentary
NIMBY-type protests strike me as the worst possible kind of hypocrisy, because the people involved almost always agree that the activity in question is necessary or even desirable, but they don’t want to have to live near it. They’re not anti-nuclear power; they’re pro-making someone else live with the consequences. I suppose I should be happy that some of the protesters in this case are at least being consistent enough to say they don't see any point in attempting to rehabilitate drug users anywhere.
I'm not happy, though. In fact, I find this case particularly irksome, because of something the members of my meeting keep hammering into my head: “everyone around here is a Christian.” The members of my meeting who are not Christian sometimes feel ostracized and persecuted because they don’t believe “correctly.” Or they just don’t bother to tell people and save themselves the grief. So we have a whole city full of Christians which includes at least one neighborhood where they don’t want to have to be around drug addicts. Interesting.
Now, don’t get me wrong. My Lutheran upbringing makes me a strong believer in “saved by grace through faith alone.” There is no action one can take (or not take) to ensure one’s salvation except believing in the Gospel. But I always hope for myself and my brothers and sisters in Christ that after we’ve been saved we will be of some benefit to the rest of the world. Rejecting people at the very moment when they’re trying to turn their lives around doesn’t seem beneficial to anyone, including the Christian children you’re trying to raise.
I think this is a hazard to being a Christian in the South. When being a Christian is the norm, then “normal” behavior, like shielding your children from people with problems, becomes equated with Christian behavior, so it doesn’t need to be examined or questioned. That’s one of the reasons I’m strongly in favor of the separation of church and state. Once we have a “Christian” government, then everything it does will be, by definition, Christian. Yeah, right.
What did you see today?
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