Conference quark::human_relations-v1

      This is my first time in using the REPLY mode in the notes file,
      so I hope this works.
    
       I guess my question is: What is the frivolous question you are
       posing?
    
         Alan
    

    re.1
    	Since even the verbage of the most qualified legal society would
    not succeed at meaningful communications here I suppose I should
    not be surprised at that reply.
    
    	????? How do you have fun in this place ??????

    Gentle noter (.0 and .2),
    
    Some gentle readers may find ways to have fun other than by
    entering obfuscatory notes.  
    
    Does "... in this place ..." refer to H_R, notesfiles in general,
    DEC in general, or ???
    
    Ciao,
    	 "Together in confusion with .1"

    DEC

    Frivolity and comedy is not discouraged in this conference.  However,
    some noters seem to be under the impression that insults and slurs
    are humorous, an opinion not shared by the moderators. Simply saying
    "Can't you take a joke?" doesn't automatically make it humor.
    
    Since this conference is not a JOKES conference, I'd expect that
    what humorous contributions are made would be somehow relevant to
    the theme of the conference, and not merely to demonstrate to the
    audience how clever the noter is.
    
    					Steve

    I always thought having fun...enjoying oneself...blooming
    where you're planted.... is a state of mind. 
    
    I don't have fun here because DEC is a fun-ny place. I bring
    a sense of "fun" to my work. If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't
    do it...
    
    You can't *find* fun, just like you can't *find* happiness.
    
    Ease up, and enjoy.
    

    re. .0
    
    Though I understand your message, let me point out to you that for
    some people (and you know who I mean) deletion is their power,
    therefore, restricting the fun that some people *once* had.
    
    

    
    Gee, I never knew it could be so tough.
    
    I have fun just getting up in the morning (What a challenge !)
    I have fun finding out what new insanities
       my boss has lined up for me that day.  (What a joke !)
    I have fun trying to figure out all the
       d--- paperwork around here (See above parenthetical statement !)
    I have even more fun when I leave work    (What a relief !)
    
    It's not difficult... as someone here said, just "lighten up"
    and enjoy it as much as you can.
    
    Perhaps it is that you're not-not trying enough ?  
    
    Have you considered a comedy club ?  The Improv ?  Rising Star ?
    
    Smile!
    
    Bob
    
    Hmmmm, I seem to recall my putting the same message across in another
    rather lengthy note here, though the context was a bit different.

    I've been referred here by the author of the basenote, as I posed a
    question in womannotes (#352), which was, to save the shy and timorous
    from having to tread in that most vociferous place: 
    
    	Are Notes in this File Just Too Deadly Serious?
    
    There are plenty of fine serious discussions, but sometimes it would
    be great to write just for fun, to attempt a little humor maybe.
    
    An earlier reply from the moderator suggested that yes, but don't
    do it here.
    
    So where can we do it?

    Dotsie are you referring to the Fantasy.Note too?

    Re: .11
    
    You misunderstand.  Humor is welcome here, especially if it sheds
    light on something in the world of human relations.  If you
    are unsure, please feel free to contact any of the moderators.
    
    					Steve

    Kerry, where is this fantasy file?   
    

    

    RE .13
    
    |You misunderstand. Humor is welcome hre, especially if it sheds
    |light on something in the world of human relations. If you
    |are unsure, please feel free to contact one of the moderaters.
    
    Are the moderaters a panel of humor experts?  Did they consult before
    allowing the above very funny statement in this note?  Is there
    documentation available?  Perhaps a book titled "The Journeyman
    Noters Guide to Moderater Humor" is in order?

    thank god for Fantasy!
    

        Not to put too much of a point on it, but the acceptability of
        humor in this or other conferences is not now, and never has
        been a real issue. What is an issue is the acceptability of
        insult and venom. And behind that is the issue of whether
        ill-mannered and hate-filled people are to be allowed to have
        their run of our various employee-interest conferences.
        
        The sort of "humor" that gets censored from this file is just
        this: (edited slightly to assure anonymity--all edits indictaed
        by square brackets)
        
	    disregarding all other answers
	    women are incapable of loving anyone 
	    all their love is wasted on themselves
	    that is why they are phisiologically incapable 
	    of making decisions
	    and they can write it all off to pms
        
                                     =====

	    for an admitted introvert you sure blab a lot

                                     =====

	    quit the crap
	    If KO so ordained to answer a "note" he would say:
    
	    This belongs in another conference......
    
	    This is 100% pure garbage note....
    
	    Noters are idiots.....
    
                                     =====

                     -< brain dead, emotionally worthless >-

	    re. [note number]
	    yup I met ya.
    
	    re. the rest sorry i did.
        
                                     =====

        When such notes are written here, they are returned to their
        author with an explanation of the fact that they are
        unacceptable. The response from one or two authors of such
        notes is that the moderators
        
            1) have no sense of humor
            2) are out to get the author
            3) are abridging free speech
            4) are cliquish
            5) take things too seriously
        
        All that is a smoke-screen. What it all comes down to is that
        the author wishes to be the center of attention, and enjoys
        embarassing and hurting other people. 
        
        JimB.

Such notes _do_ provide a service to the noting community.
If it were not for the existence of such notes and noters, then the moderators
would have nothing to do! 

And how then could we compliment the moderators on a job well done! 

Horrors, if the moderators had nothing to do, then they might have to resort to
working for Digital again, and that would never do, would it?? :-) ~\~

	Nigel

RE: < Note 331.16 by HUMAN::BURROWS "Jim Burrows" >
                            -< Humor not the issue >-

>>        All that is a smoke-screen. What it all comes down to is that
>>       the author wishes to be the center of attention, and enjoys
>>       embarassing and hurting other people. 
        
>>        JimB.

Bulls-eye, thank you JimB.

Jenna

    Well, three topics in this topic has referred to a FANTASY.NOTE...
    one other person has asked, "Where is this FANTASY.NOT", and
    no answer came across, so I am assuming that the questions was
    just inadvertly skipped over.... so I am asking the same question:
    
    
	    	W H E R E   I S   F A N T A S Y.N O T E  ???????
    
    
    Maybe someone will see the question and answer it, and also add:
    "what is a FANTASY.NOTE???"
    
    GLK
    
    

    It's in French, you probably wouldn't like it.
    
    - M

|                            -< Humor not the issue >-
|
|>>       the author wishes to be the center of attention, and enjoys
|>>       embarassing and hurting other people. 
        

 Not to digress, but an awful lot of humor as such is based on embarassing
and hurting other people; our reaction to the humor depends on our feelings
towards the group being so embarassed and hurt.

 For example, look at the TV series "Candid Camera"; the major appeal of that
show was the "humor" of common people dealing with a world gone a little crazy.

 Or ethnic jokes; the major appeal of most ethnic jokes (and, having lived in
several countries over the past fifteen years, I've heard a bunch of 'em) is
the embarassment of a particular nationality/social group/poltical group by
portraying them as incompetant, sexually extreme or lazy.

 Now, the least successful attempts at humor in non-work-related notesfiles 
are those that attack the basic tenets of our few full-time noters and 
moderators; namely that non-work-related notesfiles are serious and that they 
serve a meaningful purpose in the world of Digital. 
 This is not real surprising. It is analagous to telling an ethnic joke in the
coutry of that ethnicity. The only difference here is that very little harm is 
done to the comedian; the note will be deleted. In the real world, one telling
such jokes might awaken face-down in the alley behind the bar in which the 
joke was told.

		We now return you to the discussion in progress

			Nigel
(who is an occasional full-time noter, depending on the eccentricities of VAX C)

    RE: ,.20
    
    Cute Zaharee.... The best laugh I had all day,-- thanks a million!!!!
    
    GAle

A gentle noter was able to let me know about FANTASY.NOTE, so I thought I'd 
share with all that was wondering...  thank-you gentle noter!

Once upon a time in noters land, there was a conference called:
Kerry.Note. This was a members-only "fun" conference on {node} 
the moderator could no longer moderator it, so another gentle noter
took it over for a while on {node} before it went back to {node} as it 
was getting very large to handle on {node}.
    
The main topics worth salvaging seemed to be some elaborate
fantasy topics with had a camp-fire story flavor with each person
adding a "chapter" and passing it along to be finished with the main
or several characters in a tight situation ...

One noter had the brilliant idea to extract what they had so far and re-enter 
it in a "Fantasy.Note" that moves constantly and stays tightly held in a
members-only mode with all notes that are not "fantastic" being
deleted before the conference gets passed to its next home.

Last heard form it was changed to be called "Imagination.Note" and a
topic got to stay in if it was simply "imaginative".  
    
If you want more information, you can contact the base note author,
or the co moderator Richard Higgins can help you out I was told. 

The members usually gather together to figure out what to do with it at 
Wednesday nights at the 117 in Maynard.  So, if you visit there,
you can probably get more information also....


Hope this helps all...

    I disagree entirely with Messrs. Conliffe and Thompson on the
    usefulness of NOTES.  Certainly the conferences dedicated to
    discussions of various products are immensely beneficial, as many
    replies of thanks from frantic field people would indicate.
    
    However, the other conferences, which I would call employee-interest,
    are very beneficial too - to the well-being of the employees.
    You could make a case better for some conferences than for others,
    but conferences like HUMAN_RELATIONS, MENNOTES, WOMANNOTES, GDE
    and others are a place for DEC employees to grow personally, to
    share, to receive comfort and advice in times of stress, and in
    general to learn how to communicate better with others.  
    
    The corporation has a term for this which I think fits well: 
    "Valuing Differences".  The conferences help us understand and value
    the differences between people, and I can say that they have 
    helped me quite a bit in this area.
    
    Sadly, some employees see the conferences as nothing more than
    entertainment, or perhaps even as a convenient vehicle for their
    inner anger and frustration.  Your moderators devote themselves
    to the cause of keeping the conferences open for those who want
    to use them as a resource, even if it means dealing with the
    aggravation of "guerilla noters".  Seriously - if I didn't know
    how much this conference meant to other people as well as myself,
    I'd have given it up long ago.  The frustration level runs quite
    high, mainly because we choose to use diplomacy and quiet
    negotiation against the very few who are bent on disrupting everyone
    else's use of the conference.  But we know how important H_R is
    to many people, so we shrug off the insults and attacks and keep
    it going.
    
    My management recognizes the contributions I make through the
    various notesfiles as important and significant.  Paraphrasing
    Mr. Thompson, perhaps only the marginal employees make marginal
    use of NOTES.
    					Steve

|< Note 331.25 by QUARK::LIONEL "We all live in a yellow subroutine" >
|                       -< NOTES is a corporate treasure >-
|
|    I disagree entirely with Messrs. Conliffe and Thompson on the
|    usefulness of NOTES.  Certainly the conferences dedicated to
|    discussions of various products are immensely beneficial, as many
|    replies of thanks from frantic field people would indicate.
|    

Steve,
 You seem to be using a technique of obfuscation common amongst polititians and
used-car salesmen. By setting up a "straw man" (Messrs Conliffe and Thompson
feel _all_ notes conferences are useless), you can knock down that straw man by
reference to the work related conferences. We are in violent agreement that the
work-related notes conferences are a benefit (corporate treasure, to quote your
own hyperbole) to the corporation as a whole. 

 Once you have "demonstrated" that certain conferences are useful, you then
extrapolate from the work-related into the non-work-related, and claim that
such conferences are of equal value. I have no problem with you stating your
opinion as to the relative worth of the two sorts of conferences, providing you
state it as your opinion. 

 By deliberately confusing the line between work-related and non-work-related
conferences, you infer that a body of corporate reason and support for these
non-work-related conferences exists. This may well be an exaggeration. I believe
that this is indeed an exaggeration, and that such files are tolerated rather 
than supported. I could be wrong, I admit, but I'd be interested in seeing an
explicit statement from an authority as to the status of these files.

 You can then safely (from your own viewpoint) make blanket statements such as 
|    My management recognizes the contributions I make through the
|    various notesfiles as important and significant.  

 I'm curious. Is your management aware of your active participation in _non_-
work-related notesfiles, or is their support solely based on your valuable
and relevant technical contributions to the various work-related files? And
are you in fact extrapolating that support to your participation in the 
various non-work-related files across the network in a similar manner to that
outlined above?

		Nigel

 One is reminded of KOs apocryphal answer to the question "How many people 
work at Digital?" (answer: "About half of them!")

    

    re .24
    
    The information you present in your note is entirely incorrect.
    
    Your source of information, while rendering a rather colorful tale,
    has embelished a certain episode until it is at best unrecognizable
    by those that were there.  I am not a moderater of any conference
    at this time.  
    
    I realize you are imparting information that you recieved from what
    you no doubt consider a reliable source, however, I am compelled
    to point out the errors presented.
    
    thanks

    Re: .26
    
    Yes, my management is well aware of my moderation and participation
    in employee interest conferences.  They are just as "work-related"
    as any other.
    
    Sometimes I wish that those who think this conference is useless
    would go find something more "useful" to do than keep saying
    that it's useless.
    				Steve

        Well, we seem to have digressed to the question of whether the
        employee interest or valuing differences conferences are useful
        and supported, so I might as well speak to that.
        
        For the record, I have in the last year received permission and
        even complements on how I've handled the moderating of employee
        interest conferences from my V.P, my group manager, my senior
        manager and my cost center manager. I have obtained official
        permission to host and to moderate employee activity notes files
        from my supervisor and as many as 4 levels of my management
        (depending on the state of reorganization and my ability to
        identify a mangaer--this is DEC, you know).
        
        The local head of personnel, the local VP, and two direct
        reports of the head of personnel have acknowledged the
        usefulness to the corporation of employee interest noting,
        and of this file in particular.
        
        So, on the whole I would say that, yes, management at least in
        ZK actually supports employee activity noting rather than just
        tolerating it. They do so, I am told, because they feel that it
        contributes significantly to moral and to the sense of
        community. They do insist that there be someone responsible for
        the conferences, that they be moderated and run so that they are
        a net asset for the corporation and not a net loss.
        
        The sense of community is not fostered by humor based on
        ridicule and embarassment. Furthermore, DEC itself is legally
        liable in many ways for the contents of these files. Law suits
        and other legal actions can be brought against the corporation
        if a conference turns into a forum for discrimination and
        harassment. Ethnic humor and other humor based on embarssing and
        hurting people can easily fall into the category of things which
        make the company vulnerable. 
        
        By the way, being abusive, offensive or harassing in a
        conference is not entirely safe to the perpetrator. It can be a
        firing offense if it constitutes (or even appears to constitute)
        harassment of a protected minority or an individual. Although
        you may not "awaken face-down in the alley behind the bar" as
        Nigel put it, you could find yourself put on notice and if you
        persist, fired for inappropriate actions in a notes file.
        
        Having said all of that, let us distinguish between offensive
        humor, purely offensive behavior, and attacking the tenets that
        notefiles are serious and serve a meaningful purpose. All of
        these are likely to cause trouble but they are different beasts.
        
        When you tell somebody that they are brain dead and emotionally
        worthless, you are not engaging in off-color humor. You are
        engaging in personal attack. The person so ridiculed has a very
        strong case for getting you put on notice. If they don't it is
        only because they are unaware of their rights under DEC policy
        or because they are being generous to you. If they complain a
        response of "What'sa matter, can't take a joke?" is not
        appropriate, and the argument that it's just a little bit of
        harmless humor is pure smoke screen.
        
        If you tell ethnic jokes about ANY real minority, you may argue
        that it is "just humor", but it is still an actionable offense
        against corporate policy. A claim that it is humorous is not in
        this case pure smoke screen. It may indeed have been intended as
        humor and not as a personal attack. That may make it more
        reasonable for the offended party and officialdom of various
        levels to show leniency. It is however not an excuse. And the
        second time you do it, it is no excuse at all. Even if the slurs
        cast in the direction of women and others in this and other
        files were intended as humor, that is no excuse for them to show
        up here ever again. (Or as many times as they have.)
        
        Attacking the seriousness of employee interest noting or any
        particular file is a lesser offense still. Rather than attack
        any individual or group, it is merely disruptive of the sense of
        community that employee interest conferences are valued for.
        However, once the membership of a conference has made it clear
        that it is considered disruptive and offensive and an end to it
        is requested, further disruption may constitute an actionable
        offense against DEC policy.
        
        Again, when people are disruptive of conferences, the defense is
        often "Can'tcha take a joke?", or "Stiff-necked moderators".
        Humor is used to justify disrupting the relaxation of others.
        Personally, I see nothing humorous in it and no purpose served
        by it than to cause trouble. If you think that people are taking
        a conference much too seriously or you don't like the way it is
        run, you should, as I see it do one of two things: Attempt to
        persuade them to change or get the Hell out.
        
        I think that humor has a definite place in this file and in many
        other employee interest conferences. I would like to encourage
        it. But the humor, in order to be acceptable, must not be mean
        spirited. It must not be based on causing pain or embarassment
        to others. It must be truely good-natured.
        
        I will not stand for bald-faced personal attack, nor for mean-
        spirited humor. They have no place in this or any other DEC
        owned forum. Beyond that, I will not put up with guerilla
        noting--noting intended purely to disrupt. If people want to
        change this conference, let them work within its framework.
        Bring it up in a serious fashion in the confderence or contact
        the moderators off line. 
        
        JimB.

    Thanks, Jim.  You have a much better way with words than I do.
    
    					Steve

        Darn! As personal mail has shown, although I was long winded in
        my last note i seem to have made up for it by also being unclear
        on at least one point.
        
        When I spoke of being disruptive of a conference I did not mean
        the kind of questioning of direction and policy that Nigel and
        some others have engaged in. That is an example of the very
        healthy behavior I was refering to when I said that people who
        don't like the way a conference is being run should attempt to
        persuade the members and moderators to change. The major
        mechanisms here, as I see it, are a give and take discussion in
        the file or mail exchanges with the moderators and other
        members.
        
        I continue to be open to this sort of redirection of the
        conference, it's rules and the style of moderation. What I am
        against is what I would call "disruptive noting" or guerilla
        noting. By this I mean noting where the basic intent is not the
        exchange of ideas but upsetting of the conference and its
        members by such tactics as swamping a file with many many junk
        notes, saying things purely to disrupt and cause trouble,
        starting heated discussions and then deleting all of their own
        notes, sending harassing mail or phone calls to people in the
        file, repeatedly saying cruel and abusive things. 
        
        That's what I meant when I said:
            
            I will not put up with guerilla noting--noting intended
            purely to disrupt. If people want to change this
            conference, let them work within its framework. Bring it
            up in a serious fashion in the confderence or contact
            the moderators off line. 
        
        Sorry if I confused anyone.

        JimB.