Re: Orientation/Owners manuals | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com) | |
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2020 10:40:19 -0700 (PDT) |
One of the most difficult things in an extended family or a community is to assimilate new members. In addition to all the personality preferences and quirks, there is the question of how much new people can absorb in how many months and the most important things to know. What will help develop their feelings of security and belonging quickest? First, are probably all the things people need to know before they move anywhere. These are things people may not think of as “orientation.” What to be careful of when hanging pictures. Where the water shutoffs are. Phone numbers of the utilities they need to contact and a list of utilities they don’t have to contact (like water in some places). Advice on connecting landlines, internet, and television services. Oddities of construction. Where to recycle packing boxes. Settings to connect to the community internet or antenna. If your walls are touchy—contain sprinkler system pipes, for example — banging a nail into the wrong spot on the wall is likely to be their first experience in community. Information like this is probably more important to new members than the process of rotating cooks for the meal program. For many years one of the first questions when helping people move in was "where are the hanging pads that protect the elevator walls?" Something that can easily be left out when explaining consensus decision-making. As in bringing people into a family, names are probably less important than relationships. One of our new residents said the hardest thing was figuring out which children went with which units and caregivers. Our first generation of children included 20 kids who ran freely and interacted with each other and with adults without obvious preferences. A list of names and unit numbers may be helpful but less helpful than a list that puts people together in households and households in relation to each other, including when they moved in. A seemingly unrelated example — I began teaching at a newly formed college in a university. We had no policies. No procedures. At first, new policies and procedures were created transparently by everyone in the relatively small group of faculty and staff. Anyone with minimal awareness of governance and administrative process knew what was what. With time, the book of policies and information expanded and then exploded. In 5 or so years, the policy book was so thick no one ever looked at it — 6+ inches of pages. So departments began writing their own employee readable handbooks. Over time the handbooks would be updated with stickies or markers but not the policy book, or the reverse. Two lessons of this story: 1. Never believe that you can put everything in writing and keep it up to date unless you have paid staff or a former librarian or archivist to keep it up-to-date. 2. Never expect new people to learn that they need to know by directing them to the website or handbook. They are already overwhelmed with life changes. Let them know 1-2 people whom they can ask. As not really a F2F person (I’m a writer), I’m often surprised when the F2F people begin wanting everything to be written down so it will be standardized and available to everyone. It’s a gesture of helpfulness and new people say they want it, but think about your family writing down the expectations and practices of 3-4 generations of in-laws and out-laws. Sharon ---- Sharon Villines Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC http://www.takomavillage.org
- Re: Orientation/Owners manuals, (continued)
- Re: Orientation/Owners manuals Chris Hansen, September 14 2020
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Re: Orientation/Owners manuals Vicki Rittner, September 14 2020
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Re: Orientation/Owners manuals Chris Hansen, September 15 2020
- Re: Orientation/Owners manuals Stefani Danes, September 15 2020
- Re: Orientation/Owners manuals Sharon Villines, September 16 2020
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Re: Orientation/Owners manuals Chris Hansen, September 15 2020
- Re: Orientation/Owners manuals Scott Drennan, September 23 2020
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