I missed the phone call, but I got the message: “Hi, this is Dr. ——, and I’m just calling to se how you’re doing….” It was the periodontist. He said that if I had any problems, I could call him at a phone number that I knew was not his office number (it was a different area code); perhaps a cell phone or home phone. It was not a mechanical or rote phone call; he sounded genuinely concerned, and if I was having problems this evening (I’m not, everything is fine) I would have had not hesitation in calling him.
Did I feel good about that call? You bet. The two hours I had spent in his office that morning had not been exactly pleasant. It was very nice to get a phone call tacitly acknowledging the unpleasantness. It’s tempting to say that it’s “good customer service,” but I’m not a customer, I’m a patient who had some minor outpatient surgery. So let’s say that the phone call was the right thing to do.
It occurs to me that much of what I tend to call “church marketing” isn’t marketing at all; it’s just the right thing to do. Of course you write a handwritten note to someone who signs the church guest book; it’s the right thing to do. Of course you welcome any all visitors to your church, treating them like honored guests; it’s the right thing to do. You don’t do it to grow your church, you just do it.
Okay, all that’s good, but inquiring blog readers want to know:
how are your gums?
And I am SO RESISTING any jokes here, dear brother!
Jean — Gums are fine. They prescribed Tylenol with codeine, but I haven’t had to use it yet, Ibuprofen has been enough.
Glad to hear you’re okay. the codeine stuff is nasty — avoid.
Amen, Brother Dan, Amen!
May I, at some time in the future, quote this blog entry directly and with relish?
P.S. Glad to hear the gums are fine.
We spend so much time thinking in dualities. If sending someone a thank you card is done as a gesture of gratitude, and that component of fellowship meant to make giver and receiver feel good about the interaction, it must also be held suspect. Certainly the giver has alterior motives, and not in a good way.
Our culture has conditioned us for suspicion. It does get tiresome.
On another note, I wish more doctors would routinely call patients at home. Dentists/peridontists tend to do it, but other doctors could really benefit from the warmth of appreciative patients, as well.
Sounds like a “rogue” periodontist to me!
Jean — No codeine needed, fortunately. The toilet will receive those pills.
UU Jester — Of course you may quote. For the record, everything on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons license — click the link at the bottom of the page that reads “Copyright” for the legal details.
jmelissalab — You write: “Our culture has conditioned us for suspicion.” True, but for a fairly superficial suspicion. We never seem to have much suspicion that our social system is founded on greed, which it is, which is kinda your point. I wish our suspicions either went lots deeper, or went away.
Phil — Yup, reminds me of your airline captain!! Read Phil’s great post at:
http://philontheprairie.wordpress.com/2007/09/11/we-need-more-rogue-ministers/
Dan,
Did you really delete and/or fail to approve Emerson Avenger’s post to this thread? He claims you did…
It lends quite a bit of irony to your talk of “the right thing to do,” if that’s the case. But I thought perhaps it was just an administrative error, which is why I thought to ask.
Peace,
Rev. Jack Ditch
Rev. Jack Ditch — Not an administrative error. Robin Edgar’s comment contained material that I consider to be inappropriate, because he made statements that I felt unfairly attacked other people personally. I am very open to criticizing Unitarian Universalism, but I draw the line at ad hominem attacks, no matter how veiled they might be.
Robin Edgar has been banned from commenting on other Unitarian Universalist blogs because of his ad hominem attacks. I am willing to let him continue to comment here, but only if he follows the very clear blog guidelines that I have spelled out at http://www.danielharper.org/blog/?page_id=456 — which read, in part, “While I encourage free debate, I don’t tolerate ad hominem attacks. Snark yes, meanness no. And since it’s my blog, I get to determine which is which.” So you see, in my opinion, what I did was in fact the right thing to do, with no irony at all.
And Rev. Jack Ditch, thanks for taking this up directly with me — I admit, I would have preferred that you send me email, addressing your concerns with me directly, instead of leaving a comment — but the fact remains that you confronted me directly with your concerns. And what you did contrasts dramatically with what Robin Edgar did in refusing to contact me directly via email, and instead badmouthing me indirectly on his blog.
“Robin Edgar’s comment contained material that I consider to be and appropriate, because he made statements that I felt unfairly attacked other people personally.”
Hnh. Wll, h dsn’t sm t mntn nyn t ll prsnlly n th cp f hs cmmnt svd t hs wn blg; I lv t t y t clrf f tht sgnfcntl dffrd frm wht h pstd hr. Y’r rght tht t’s whlly p t y wht s nd s nt llwd n yr blg, bt f tht’s whr y drw th ln, I fr y’r dmnstrtng hs pnt bt th hddn ntlrnc of *s ll t wll.
Ths, n cmb wth yr prfrnc tht ml y rthr thn sy ths thngs n pblc, dfntly hghlghts th drkr sd f mrktng: mrktng s bt hdng th nplsnt prts nd nl shwng th gd prts n pblc. t’s rthr fndmntll l, vn f jst l f mssn, nd ‘m nt s sr tht’s th “rght thng t d” vn n gnrl. Wlcmng nd cmmnctng wth thrs–dspt thr flws, dspt thr nplsntnss–s crtnl th rght thng t d–bt tht’s nt mrktng, tht’s jst dcnt hmn rltnshps. Whrs slncng ths y fnd ffnsv whl sngng th prss f th ppl y lk s dhmnzng, bth t th ppl y’r slncng nd ltmtl t yrslf, s y bld th mg f yr pr grp p t b grtr thn y rlly hmnl r.
fl th “rght thng t d” wld b t g t nt th wrld nd shw thm tht mmbrs f th cn lv nd mbrc thrs dspte thr grtng ccntrcts, “wrts nd ll.” Shw th wrld tht w fc cnflct, nt wth jdgmnt nd pnshmnt f snnrs, bt wth frgvnss nd dsr fr th rcncltn f ll hmnt. Bt dng tht n lrg scl, s n ntr dnmntn, strts wth dng n smll scl, lk n r blgs.
Pls kp n mnd tht dn’t ntnd t b wggng fngr fr brch f mrlt, s f y brk rl. ‘m ffrng ths s prctcl dvc. Hvng bn n mrsn’s shs lng g, knw t ws nt n f th ppl pstlckng m wh fnll gt m t f tht fnk. Rthr, t ws ths ppl wh tlrtd m nd shwd m kndnss vn s ttckd thm wh tght m t shw kndnss nd cmpssn t m wn dtrctrs. “Lv yr nms,” s thy sy, ps gdnss frwrd. t th nd f th dy, pstlckd jykll wll rn bck t thr wn blg t sy nsty thngs abt y, thr ngr fmntng t rsrfc nthr dy. Bt smn wh s lft t rnt n th mdst f plsnt n plt ppl wll nt fnd cs t rnt fr lng, s thr crtcsms r dmnstrtd t b grndlss smpl b th tlrnc nd frgvnss thy r shwn.
nw, thnks fr gvng m th pprtnty t xprss ths thghts n yr spc. h, nd Hppy Tlk Lk Prt Dy! Gld t s ‘m nt th nl clbrtng t! Yrrr! :-)
Rev. Jack Ditch — Having spent years in science fiction fandom, I’ve long since learned this kind of thing winds up as a long-standing flame war or feud (science fiction fans had flames wars in print fanzines long before email flame wars were even invented). Ah yes (he says, remembering the old days with fondness), I even printed LoCs in my own zine that flamed me, followed by my response, followed in the next ish by additional LoCs flaming me, and on and on until my zine went under due to grad school. Now that I’m middleaged, I find that whole process boring. Which is why Rev. Jack Ditch’s comment has been disemvoweled (a.k.a. dsmvwld).
At a recent Boskone, the Boston-area science fiction convention, I went to a panel on sf blogs in which Teresa Nielsen Hayden talked about how she deals with trolling, flaming, rudeness, etc. She is the proud inventor of “disemvowelling,” which Cory Doctorow (in a fantastic essay from the May 14, 2007, issue of Information Weekly) describes as follows:
“Teresa invented a technique called disemvowelling — removing the vowels from some or all of a fiery message-board post. The advantage of this is that it leaves the words intact, but requires that you read them very slowly — so slowly that it takes the sting out of them. And, as Teresa recently explained to me, disemvowelling part of a post lets the rest of the community know what kind of sentiment is and is not socially acceptable.” Link to the article.
I am not a “troll-whisperer” (as Doctorow describes Teresa Nielsen-Hayden), as should be obvious by now. There’s a reason why her blog is way more popular, by several orders of magnitude, than my blog — she’s good at keeping discussions flowing in really productive ways. But I am a product of the sf community, the most accepting and libertarian community I have ever experienced — and it’s worth trying to apply a truly great sf community-building technique to this Unitarian Universalist blog.