Thursday, April 12, 2018

Rules of the Game (Tradecraft)

My shifts at the store start at 10am and I'm out before events start. I like my days to be quiet, and most of my customer interactions are the lunch crowd, a group of regulars I've enjoyed for over a decade. There are people who shop at my store who have no idea who I am or remember me fondly from olden days. Events, and the vast majority of sales, occur in the evening so when I started noticing new signs in the store, I knew what that meant. That particular behavior or policy confusion was happening.

While in grad school in Buddhist studies, we briefly touched on the Vinaya, which included the code of conduct for Buddhist monks and nuns. These were not top down, high concept, engraved on stone tablets, but rather hundreds of rules created as needed to tweak behavior. These are rules to allow people to do their spiritual business without being distracted or disrupted by the unruly, which might be other monks or perhaps their own tendencies. It's stuff as granular as not leaving a chair outside after you've used it. This kind of stuff might seem granular, but 2,500 years later, it offers a historical insight into what people were actually doing, since only crazy people create rules for problems that don't exist (a singularly modern American problem).

I run my store much like this. Part of Third Place Theory is creating a welcoming place where common activities can be engaged in without it being overly restrictive. There is no promise people will get along and the fact they won't get along with everyone is part of the deal. You will play games with people you don't care for, whose politics you disagree with, whose culture is not your own. Mission accomplished. Civilized society shall continue as we break down tribal barriers.

Our code of conduct is the unwritten and unspoken, "Don't be a dick." This does require staff to occasionally tell people, "Hey, you're being a dick," but it's rare when people show shock there's not a sign banning their dickish behavior. This did require some training of staff early on, and some staff were getting steamrolled back in the day. New staff can occasionally panic a bit and get a little too animated when people break the rules. Assertiveness training is a thing. Calling people out for bad behavior is not something we teach people nowadays. It's a damn shame.

What you will learn from reading the Vinaya or running a game store is people will generally skirt right up to the edge of the rules, and then take a step or two over. A Vinaya example is "Not to purchase another floor carpet as long as the former is not six years old yet." Imagine the conversation: "Joe, we told you when you started with us you could have a floor carpet and replace it when it's worn out, but your desire for fancy stuff is getting in the way of your goals, so now everyone has to give away new carpets if they're less than six years old. Joe, you're literally why we can't have nice things. No Joe, I used literally correctly this time." We have the same issue with policies where we need to finally put up a sign because there are those who will abuse the system otherwise. My guess is Joe the Monk wasn't the only one with new carpets, just as we don't create new rules for that one guy who brings product from the retail space into our Game Center.

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