RantWoman, your whole community--including you--is traumatized by recent doings in Meeting for Business and you are writing about document formats.
Yep! and there are MANY strands of confusion. So be forewarned: this entry IS complex and RantWoman reserves the right to join everyone else who loses it in conversation, tell others just to read the post, write down questions, and THEN talk to RantWoman.
Let's start with the 3 documents on RantWoman's mind.
--Two one-page handouts from the most recent Sex abuse education event at RantWoman's Meeting
--A notebook in the Meeting library full of pamphlets and handouts about a number of topics related to abuse and domestic violence . At least RantWoman assumes the topics she remembers are still there since RantWoman has not been in a position to do more than put her hands on the notebook in more than a decade. Has the notebook been checked for updates, question RantWoman was TRYING To communicate years ago....? Even if a lot of contact info may be out of date, should there definitely still be something people can put their hands on in the library? Does RantWoman even care since RantWoman knows plenty of topical search strings and resources and is likely just to use her search bar anyway? PS Someone at the event mentioned a website; RantWoman did not catch the url. Somehow a request to have that url got lost.
PPS For anyone besides RantWoman who might care, REWA.org has downloadable and easy to pring PDF's in a number of languages.
--The report on the Meeting's website
http://ufmseattle.org/home/reports/
This 350+ page PDF compiles excerpts of minutes from walking with a specific offender through treatment. In retrospect kind of excruciating reading at several points. Headings help for screen reader and RantWoman definitely recommends reading the table of contents and knowing how to skip to the corresponding pages, but of decidedly limited use if one is looking for resources in a crisis.
Now to today's document format saga.
Blame the technology, or blame the Official Bogeyman of RantWoman's Meeting. Either way, there is WAY too much data and RantWoman should intone a moment from a long ago eldering conversation: if you're in a hole, stop digging. (RantWoman was thinking the same thing in the direction of her counterpart, but let's just say the thought took time to ripen and mercifully did not tumble out of RantWoman's mouth at the time.
Recently RantWoman's Meeting held its annual sex abuse prevention training session. RantWoman is duly grateful for a presenter who donated her time. RantWoman is grateful for participants new to UFM's ministry who had a lively discussion. There were other moments RantWoman collected data about and will hold in the Light.
Now we come to what Breme Brown calls the shitty first draft SFD interpretation of several data points, the initial frequently wrong first pass analysis we all do leaping to conclusions never mind how many people might also be around discounting lived experience
Data points. RantWoman goes to public events all the time staffed by people who understand the phrase reasonable accommodations and most of the time when RantWoman remembers to ask, needed documents are forthcoming. RantWoman thinks that would be a minimal courtesy though Rant Woman does not really care to argue the applicability of ADA for religious organizations here except to note that the topic needs more reflection. In any case, RantWoman did not think to request electronic copies of handouts before the event and was peeved after the event to be told that electronic copies were not to be had.
SFD interpretation: RantWoman is a flake who communicates poorly and has unreasonable expectations that people might know her needs without being told.
SFD interpretation: Lots of people know RantWoman is blind and might think to ask for handouts in advance when planning an event.
SFD interpretation: RantWoman has been doing a poor job of educating people about her needs.
SFD interpretation: even if RantWoman had been doing a better job of educating...
Data point: why would RantWoman not think to ask the person organizing the event about electronic copies of handouts? Well for one thing because event organizer acts personally affronted when RantWoman asks her pretty much anything. And for another thing because one of RantWoman's standard SFD stocks in trade is that if she asks for what she needs the world will fall apart and people around her will explode, and not even in a funny cartoon way.
Sometimes RantWoman HATES collecting data.
2. RantWoman received a copy of the handouts but gave them away thinking it would be reasonable to ask afterward for an electronic copy.
SFD moment: RantWoman was being Dork blind person and failing to use her technology. Ummm, RantWoman does not have the spiffiest OCR phone app. In general RantWoman's experience, app or no app, is that OCR of cellphone camera text images is not by far her favorite technology.path to accessibility.
3. When no electronic copies of the handouts were to be had, RantWoman emailed several of those present and asked whether anyone still had the handouts and could just scan them and route to RantWoman. In short order RantWoman got back quite usable images from one of the younger participants and RantWoman was able to read the documents sufficiently to read that one of them contained a request not to copy without the presenter's permission, a request that needed commentary in the email about copying for accessibility
In keeping with a promise not to do reply/all more than once in 24 hours, RantWoman did not tell others that she had what she needed. Possibly doing that would have been preferable to learning that another person present had torn the handouts up for scrap paper but was willing to tape them back together if that would help RantWoman. How to say it kindly: taped together images are about as useful as smartphone camera images or maybe less so. Or just say "Thank you," as RantWoman practices many times a day for all kinds of unhelpful help.
SFD interpretation: RantWoman is ungrateful for one person's efforts.
SFD interpretation: no one on Care and Counsel thinks about such handouts as a community resource.
4. Possibly RantWoman should have just quit, but RantWoman asked a question in email about updating the Notebook, meaning the big thing full of resources in the Library. RantWoman expressed the value of lots of people understanding the same resource.
SFD response: For RantWoman's trouble a request was made to someone to scan all the (probably outdated pamphlets in the resource notebook and send them to RantWoman.
NO! That was not anywhere near what RantWoman had in mind. That would take hours and possibly leave RantWoman with a whole library of documents of varying visual quality needing to be read. Thankfully, RantWoman's NO was heard.
But no, we are NOT done with confusion. In another conversation about Friend Who taped things, someone else asked whether the resource notebook in the library was the thing on the Meeting website. Noooo!
And for still more achievements in the realm of Quakers at their very, very best, one of the conversations about taped together handouts came with a spectacular tirade about how RantWoman is the abuser and abusers are not to be tolerated in the age of Trump.
Please excuse RantWoman. A bunch of pissed off people with
disabilities standing up for themselves and getting themselves
arrested in Congresspeople's offices all over the country is a big
part of what at least for now derailed Trumpcare. So maybe possibly if
RantWoman heard in said conversation any sense of who exactly is directly under attack
needing to stand up for themselves and frankly needing all the help we
can get in the current regime, RantWoman MIGHT also be better able to extract meaning from other threads of the whole day's conversation. MAYBE.
Actually someone's "I'm concerned about YOU" matters and that has to be enough for now.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment