Does anybody here know what they are talking about?

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I was going to name this thread Battlefield Triage Criteria.

what it sounds like to me is Mission Statement and-or Market Research Brainstorm Session, from the latest info.  from what i gather, you're either asking for no-agenda-no-obligation customer-feedback for reasons of open-ended dialoguey-type interest or [personal] usefulness . . . or this is actually a kind of war room/strategy thing, intending to define Official Policies for the Entire Board At Large.  including the respondents.  i'm just not 100% clear which it is. 

it's about how we, as a group,  hand out "abandon ship" recommendations to others with a limited amount of information...

exactly my new um, non-clarity.  are you asking for mere information about the current behaviour, or are you asking how we, as a group [will - group statement of future intent implied] hand them out?  i'm working for a company going for an iso certification right now, so you understand i may be 'seeing' people seeking that kind of manically nit-picky uniformity in their kool-aid brewing when they're not really doing that.

I feel a little like we are a hammer, and everything looks like a nail to us.

well, i'll buy that, for what my impression is worth.  and it for reasons that might be a bit obvious to people who've 'heard' some of my own posts: i don't include myself in that particular 'we' as i agree with it.  again fwiw, all it's done to me personally is cause me to seriously scale back both my participation and my expectations wrt this board.  but then i'm not in crisis, so i can live with that quite easily.  and if i ever was in crisis again, i'd probably just be careful not to be it in here, cause i have the information i need to already know 'you' would be almost no use.  sorry and all that, and yeah, i am aware that that's me personally.

you ask for triage suggestions.  i don't have one; the whole question is moot to me.  initially i thought you were asking what 'we' thought about 'our' relationships, if that makes sense:  what we thought of relationships in general, including relationships we might be a part of ourselves.  but you're not; you're really asking what 'we' think of 'other people's' relationships.  my answer: i don't.  it's not really my place to form judgements like that, i guess is my take.

[meredith]

I was going to name this thread Battlefield Triage Criteria.

what it sounds like to me is Mission Statement and-or Market Research Brainstorm Session, from the latest info.  from what i gather, you're either asking for no-agenda-no-obligation customer-feedback for reasons of open-ended dialoguey-type interest or [personal] usefulness . . . or this is actually a kind of war room/strategy thing, intending to define Official Policies for the Entire Board At Large.  including the respondents.  i'm just not 100% clear which it is. 

it's about how we, as a group,  hand out "abandon ship" recommendations to others with a limited amount of information...

exactly my new um, non-clarity.  are you asking for mere information about the current behaviour, or are you asking how we, as a group [will - group statement of future intent implied] hand them out?  i'm working for a company going for an iso certification right now, so you understand i may be 'seeing' people seeking that kind of manically nit-picky uniformity in their kool-aid brewing when they're not really doing that.

I feel a little like we are a hammer, and everything looks like a nail to us.

well, i'll buy that, for what my impression is worth.  and it for reasons that might be a bit obvious to people who've 'heard' some of my own posts: i don't include myself in that particular 'we' as i agree with it.  again fwiw, all it's done to me personally is cause me to seriously scale back both my participation and my expectations wrt this board.  but then i'm not in crisis, so i can live with that quite easily.  and if i ever was in crisis again, i'd probably just be careful not to be it in here, cause i have the information i need to already know 'you' would be almost no use.  sorry and all that, and yeah, i am aware that that's me personally.

you ask for triage suggestions.  i don't have one; the whole question is moot to me.  initially i thought you were asking what 'we' thought about 'our' relationships, if that makes sense:  what we thought of relationships in general, including relationships we might be a part of ourselves.  but you're not; you're really asking what 'we' think of 'other people's' relationships.  my answer: i don't.  it's not really my place to form judgements like that, i guess is my take.

[Skippy]

I always appeciate your candor, Meredith.

     After 350 posts, there is no questioning whether you've seen it all;

          the best and the worst.

Skippy

[meredith]

more on this.  i saw your reply and don't want to flog the dead horse, but i'd already typed this up and it might add information, so i'll post it anyway.

i went back and re-read your tentative list, skip - the one that synthesized what you'd heard so far from the previous page.  and i have something further to say, a clearer identification of what bothers me in the whole idea.  bear in mind, of course, that i do know this is just me.  i offer it as a mere perspective, to be added and crunched along with the other ones.

you seek (if i'm understanding this) to make a semi-formalised list of the 'things' that are outright unacceptable in a relationship, that can be used as a handy yard-stick for guiding 'policy' here in types of response.  you're drawing up a menu of judgements, basically - i don't mean that in a loaded way, just that there's definitely value involved in the whole thing.  in itself that's not my problem; value's always a factor in anything of this kind.

but this here is what is my problem:  the vibe i get is that it's leaning towards an idea that the list can be applied in a manner that is 'absolute'.  what i mean by that is, that if the list is used in that way, then it ends up as a tool that basically takes the person out of the situation; it can (and i fear will) be applied in all situations to all people.  regardless - to the point where people pretty much don't even have to show up in person at all to receive their 'orders'.  they could just mail in a computerised bubble-sht and get it mailed back to them.  heck, they could probably even just do it themselves from a little inline javascript thingy.

i understand the impulse to take some of the subjectivity and trial-and-error out of it all.  i think there's value in it.  it makes sense in so many ways; it's efficient in a setting where efficiency does matter because people's lives (in any sense you want to name) are on the line.  and people's engagement is affected with their initial experiences; in a sense there's a 'window' you have to 'grab' someone and have a chance of making the differences that do make a difference.  and lord knows the people who operate here more on the frontlines have rights of their own not to get burned down to the quick.  so i'm kind of diffident about laying down any laws.  but once more fwiw . . .

i just don't (personally) think that the approach will really deal with any of the goals that (i gather) motivated you to open the thread.  the reason for that is that i don't think this is a change of attitudes; it's just a recalibration and/or a formalisation of the attitudes already in place - the same attitudes that cause a 'problem' for some.  you know that saying 'the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house'?  well, to me this kind of looks like the master's tools trying to fix the master's house.  and that's fine, in itself - i think you will get a better master's house out of it.  

but isn't it true that the main reason why you opened this thread was concern over the fact that the master's house just doesn't work for some folks?  truthfully, speaking as one of those folks, i can tell you that a better master's house ain't gonna work for me either.  the quality of the house is not the problem; it's the architecture.  inside that house, for me, is a duck.  and i am just not down with ducks.  i don't care if it waddles swan lake and quacks turandot, which is kind of what it looks to me like is the retraining attempt going on here. i'm just plain anti-duck.

to my mind, if you're wanting to balance better with the needs of people who aren't into ducks (and nothing says as a moral absolute that you have to), then you're asking the wrong questions.  the issue, for me, is not when it's okay to tell me, de haut en bas, what to think, how to feel, what to do.  the issue to me is whether.  and the answer is no.  not in this context, by very definition of the fact that this is 'support'.  if i worked for you, sure.  i'll enter into working relationships and be told what to do and what perspectives to operate from and what value sets to apply, with the greatest cheerfulness on the planet, and have no problem at all about it.  if i don't like them i'll leave.

not here.  here, and in everything else where there's no transaction involved, i only do equality.  i wouldn't accept any support that was based on anything less, and any mindset that determines someone's relative level of deserved 'equality' - meaning right to give orders and impose value sets - by how much trouble or non-trouble they're in - well, by definition those mindsets just don't have anything to say that i can apply seriously in my own life.

[Skippy]

you seek to make a semi-formalised list of the 'things' that are outright unacceptable in a relationship, that can be used as a handy yard-stick for guiding 'policy' here... .you're drawing up a menu of judgements

Yikes.  It's just a thread to encourage some recalibration, and broadening of thought and to cast some light on what we are doing.  It's a healthy thing to do - don't you think - however awkward or inept the effort.

i just don't (personally) think that the approach will really deal with any of the goals that (i gather) motivated you to open the thread.  the reason for that is that i don't think this is a change of attitudes; it's just a recalibration and/or a formalisation of the attitudes already in place - the same attitudes that cause a 'problem' for some. 

I would replace "formalization" (in your sentence above) with "cross pollenization".  And you may very well be right, it might not grow a single attitude. This could be a waste of everyones time.  But if it better helps one wayward soul coming here for help, it will have served its purpose. 

if i worked for you, sure.  i'll enter into working relationships and be told what to do and what perspectives to operate from and what value sets to apply, here, and in everything else where there's no transaction involved, i only do equality.

Honestly Meredith, how could it even be any different on a free and anonymous  message board?   

But if you worked with Skippy, you'd have to you wear the big head with blue triangle nose, too.  Try filling out ISO 9001 forms with that thing on. 8)

Skippy