Double Binds and Compliant Bondage

My post is a little late this week. It is all your fault readers. I am holding you all accountable and will be levying seriously big  fines on all of you unless you comment to this blog explaining why it was late. I'll give you a week. If you do not comment I will find you in noncompliance and write more nasty blogs to you - hopefully scary enough to cause you high levels of stress and cause you to break into a cold sweat at night instead of having those sweet dreams.

I bet you can tell that I just returned from customer service training workshop on how to intimidate your clients into submission using the insights and strategies proven over the last 100 years by the IRS. I am not going to give away all of the secrets and tips I learned, but will share a few with you.

1. Always provide your customers with a lot of information, but the information should be hard to find and if they do find it, impossible for them to understand. This will make you look smarter and establish you as an expert in the field (expertise is something everyone looks for in an organization). This has the added benefit that you can then bully your customers by making them feel ignorant and incompetent. They will then need you for that expertise you have.

2. Be arbitrary and capricious. Try not to provide any definite guidelines. Keep everything fluid so you can use intimidation tactics to make sure your customers conform on an individual basis. 

3. Always include a veiled threat like "if you do not respond in thirty days, X will happen to your loved ones." This helps get them into feeling a classic double bind situation hence increasing vulnerability and again helping you form compliance. (Thank you Gregory Bateson).

4. Charge large fines. People apparently liked to be scared. This has the added benefit of further stressing them out so that they are weakened into a more submissive state. (One drawback pointed out was that the added induced stress levels could diminish the chance of extracting fines and revenue as that money may be spent on health expenses before the fine can be collected. This was discussed at length by participants with no conclusions as to whether this would be affected by the pending healthcare legislation. Unfortunately I fell asleep during Representative John Boehner's Skype presentation on the subject.)

Cinderblock Fella

I have been moving rocks and cinder blocks around in the garden. We just cannot decide where they should go. I have moved them all a couple of times. Once or twice because they were in the way of another project we had going out there. The task gave me great satisfaction each time I completed a move - some of the moves took a couple days - we have a lot of rocks and cinder blocks. I felt stronger for all the lifting. I now may even have a small muscle to flex. I even used a sledge hammer to smash some of the cinderblocks to create rubble we did not need. But it did give us the appearance of more space. I sit here now quite satisfied. I also now better understand how our government works - doing lots of unnecessary tasks, breaking things apart and feeling stronger and more powerful by doing it all as you indeed accomplish nothing. Perhaps we both should get to try on the fancy little slipper and go to a ball with our Prince Charming. On second thought (actually it was my first) perhaps none of the politicians around these days should be reelected nor allowed to go to a ball. Maybe they should take the one we are all continuing to roll uphill.