"Constructive Criticism"

Hi. It's been a while since my last real post. Almost a month. For a couple of weeks that was because I was just busy with other things like a birthday party and an erupting volcano cake and visiting family. And then, for the last couple of weeks, it was because of a vacation to Canada, a child falling downstairs, and an associated stay at a very nice hospital in Toronto. But here I am again, and things have settled down a little.


In my last real post (that wasn't someone else's cartoon) I was talking about putting myself out there and how uncomfortable I am with it and with trying to lead something, and how trying to start a neighborhood group is really putting me in touch with that. 


I am trying to start this neighborhood group because I want to feel a sense of community. Because I want my kids to have friends to play with in the neighborhood. Because they say knowing your neighbors is one of the biggest things you can do to increase neighborhood safety. Because twenty years ago, everyone in the neighborhood knew each other, and I think it can be that kind of neighborhood again, despite that fact that it's now a mix of empty-nesters who are on the verge of retiring and younger families with little kids, with others thrown in here and there.


We moved here almost four years ago, and I have been waiting for someone else to start some kind of group. An email list serve, maybe, or a Facebook group. Where we can share information about the Verizon VOIP conversion, or the repaving of a road, or robberies in the area. 


So finally, in February, heartened by getting to know a neighbor who seems like someone who can get things done, I suggested we start a group ourselves. She is very busy, runs her own company and takes care of her little kid, but she cheered me on, and I decided to go ahead and do it.


Now, the first part of the project was totally challenging me within my comfort zone. I tried out GoogleGroups, GoogleDocs, GoogleMaps, and GoogleSites. I made a website with a picture and a survey and a map, and a sign-up form that would automatically populate a spreadsheet that could later be available as the group directory. I got advice about neighborhood boundaries from a realtor friend, and advice about community building from another friend. It was a lot of work that I really didn't have time for, but it was fun, and Dr. J worked on it with me some, and it was the kind of thing I used to enjoy doing before I had kids. It was great.


And then it was time to "go live". And you may have read what happened over the first few days. 


Now, I like to think that I am someone who knows how to benefit from constructive criticism. But as I have said before, I have the thinnest of skin, and once I am out of my comfort zone, putting myself out there, it does not get any thicker. 


So over the first few weeks, in addition to two people leaving the day they joined because it was "not what I expected" and "I have a family to take care of," I got other feedback.

"The area is too big."

"These (waves hand, standing in front of her house) are my neighbors. I don't need to know all those other people."


"I think the area is just right."


"People are squeamish about putting information online these days." Yes, but the only required information is name and address, which are freely available on the county tax site!


"People don't want to get so many emails." This, for a group that so far has probably averaged less than 2 messages per week. I mentioned the digest option where you can get all of each day's emails, if any, combined into a single email. "One email per day is too many. I mean, from my friends, yes. But not from every Tom, Dick, and Harry." 

"I only want to get messages about topics that interest me. Can you change it so that I only get emails I'm interested in?" Uh, no. Actually, I can't. Google didn't design their Groups that way, and it turns out that hacking GoogleGroups is beyond my area of expertise. She then went on to suggest that I talk to a neighbor who is a professor of IT, who has expressed not a shred of interest in the group, because maybe he could fix it.

"I personally thought that the boundary of the neighborhood is too wide to start the group. Why don't we just start with [four streets] then expand it in the future? Actually, the apartment buildings over behind the shopping center may need this kind of connection also." So...it should be smaller, and not include the whole official neighborhood, but we should then add all the people in the apartment buildings on the next block who aren't technically in our neighborhood and who are bound to have different concerns, since they are not homeowners anyway?

"I think the boundary of the group is just fine."


I suddenly had great sympathy for people who go into public office. I'm sure most of them do it because they want to do good and help people (whatever their political views). And then, everyone is mad at you because you aren't doing things the way people think you should be and/or acting like you are purposely trying to ruin their lives by trying to do right by everyone.


To be fair, those quotes above came from just a small handful of well-meaning friends, none of them mad at me. But every single not 100% approving comment or suggestion gets under my (as I have admitted, very, very thin) skin and tortures me. I feel as if the person is mad at me. As if EVERYONE is mad at me. 


And then I just want to hide.

Optimizers in the age of the Internet

This is and XKCD comic related to some posts a while back about Optimizers vs. Satisficers. Thanks to Dr. Jay for passing it on!

The Curse of the Bunnies

So last week I started recruiting people to join the neighborhood group I am trying to start. I had originally started out with my husband and my two friends, L and J, on the Google Group for a couple weeks while I sent emails, letting them know about things I had changed on the website and what did they think; and lots of emails called "test" because I was trying to work out how the whole thing was going to work. I wanted to really get as many ducks in a row as possible before we "went live," because I didn't want to bug people with a bunch of emails they didn't need.

Finally, around Monday or so, I sent an email to the other 3 people in the group saying I thought we really were actually ready, and letting them know that they were welcome to start inviting people. On Tuesday, I invited 3 people. One joined. On Wednesday, I invited 5 people. Two joined. Plus, another one, who for some reason did not join, told me on Thursday that she had invited 12 other people to join! I was on top of the world, brimming with optimism. So I thought it was a good time to email the bunny lady and clear the air. (See previous post for more on why the air needed to be cleared.)

So I emailed her, and apologized for not having emailed before I showed up to accost her with baked goods last month. I told her that if she had poop to give away, I knew a couple of other people who were also interested, so to let me know. Whenever it was good for her. I went out of my way to not be pushy or to inconvenience her in any way.

And she emailed back, and said that on the morning I showed up, she had been working on a novel, and my visit had moved her from thinking to actually writing, so it was a good thing I had come by. This seemed like a very nice thing to say, and she told me she had 6 bags of poop and we could coordinate a time to come get however much we wanted.

AWESOME! I was starting a neighborhood group AND fixed things with the bunny lady. I felt like a million bucks. Then I had a great idea. I sent an email to the neighborhood group saying that if anyone was interested in rabbit manure for their garden, to let me know.

The next day, Friday, 2 people joined the group THAT I HAD NEVER EVEN MET BEFORE! We were up to 12 members, and I was making new friends! I decided I would have a potluck in a couple of weeks so everyone could meet all the new friends they were going to be making. It was awesome.

And then. And then, my two pals, who had so patiently suffered through email after email as they helped me work out the kinks of the new group, endured "test" emails out the wazoo, cheered me on, etc., sent a few emails back and forth, planning the details of a trip to get poop.

Let me say here that I am very concerned, always, with not sending the wrong email to the wrong people. You might even say I am mortally terrified of accidentally "replying all" when it's not appropriate. I double check--I triple check!--the "to" field before I send any email. But when I saw this exchange, I realized that L and J didn't know other people had joined the group! I quickly emailed from my phone to try to end the public planning, since I needed to coordinate with the bunny lady before we planned anything, anyway. And the only way I knew to be certain L and J got my email was to email the group, since I wasn't sure which email addresses they were checking. So, as I waited for my kids' parent teacher conferences to start, I dashed off an email saying it was great they were interested and I would contact the bunny lady and get back to them.

An hour later, when the conferences were over, I checked my email, and I felt like I'd been slapped. One of the two new members I'd never met before was apparently fed up with the 5 emails she had received on the subject and wanted off the list. It wasn't what she expected, she said. And, as she pointed out, she didn't have time for this, as she had a family to take care of. OUCH! Within a short time, the other new person had sent a brief but clear email to the group: "Unsubscribe Please!"

I was beside myself with embarrassment. Were all 7 other people on the list angry that I had tricked them into joining a group just so I could have an audience for planning 4-block car trips with my friends? Did everyone think I had no sense of Netiquette? Plus, I was confused. How many emails had she gotten?! Was everyone getting all kinds of stuff they weren't supposed to be getting?

So I got very upset, but composed what I think was a gracious response. I apologized to the group for the emails that should have been private, but pointed out that L and J, who had been helping me, were blameless. I took all the responsibility for the emails myself, explained that there was also a digest option to cut down on the number of emails received from the group in a day, and supplied the requested  information about unsubscribing (which, I did NOT point out, if the requestor had bothered to read the helpful Welcome Email I had sent her a few hours before, she would have already known). And I thanked everyone for their patience while we were still working out the kinks. "Since," I did NOT say, "you know, I created the group to be nice and to try to help everyone in the neighborhood, even though I don't really have time for this and I have a family to take care of."

As L pointed out later, the bunny poop is my downfall every time.

Why I think you should take a break from Facebook, and what I think you should do instead

I think Facebook lessens feelings of abundance. You compare yourself to all the stuff people post that gives a totally skewed view of how awesome their lives are. Plus, it's addictive. You actually get a little tiny burst of dopamine when someone comments on your post or likes your link. So you find yourself constantly checking, looking for the hit. It distracts you when you should be driving. Or working. Or cooking dinner. "I just need to look real quick..."

At least, that's how it is for me. Plus, there are certain political topics that I like to assume everyone agrees with me about, and it is possible to learn on FB that some very lovely people do not agree with you. But I have the thinnest of skin and would go so far as to call myself a Highly Sensitive Person, so the very absolute last thing I ever want to do is engage in any kind of political debate. I wish I were someone who wants to be informed and engage in a mind-enhancing back-and-forth of lofty ideas. But I don't. I want to preach to the choir, and only the choir.

So I have taken a break from FaceBook.

...and started a Neighborhood Group instead. I used Google Groups and Google Sites and Google Docs and Google Maps, and made a list serve and a website, and I'm trying, along with a friend, to get people to join. We started spreading the word last week, and we are up to a whopping, uh, 13 members. Including me and her and my husband.

Anyway, so now instead of getting the dopamine hit from FB, I am getting it from checking to see if anyone has asked to join the group or filled out the "neighborhood activity survey" or left comments on the site. But my hope is that the formation of this group may result in some actual face-to-face interactions. Meeting new people who live around the corner. A sense of non-virtual community. And I think that would really increase the feeling of abundance in my life.

I'll let you know how it goes, but I can tell you this: we will be trying very hard to avoid any political topics.