Learning & Forgetting
Bumblebee learning pa harakeke crocuses
This week has been about learning and discovering I've forgotten what I previously learned. First off, I have been learning how to use Logic Prox X, complex music editing software. Learning is a lifelong process and I have an inbuilt drive to learn which takes me to interesting countries, pushes me into learning new instruments, and into creative writing, as well as helping people write research proposals about topics regarding which I know nothing until I'm engaged to work with them. I want to record some of my original songs. In today's world, that means I need to use music editing software.
Learning Logic Pro is a two steps forward then beat-your-head-against-a-wall sort of process. Is this how I learned when I was younger? I fear it was...I haven't changed that much. You know that feeling when you are trying to make software do something you know it should do and it just won't...so you keep trying and trying and trying...and it still won't...and then it's 11pm and you'll have just one more go...and then it's midnight and now you're really tired and it still won't work so you go to bed annoyed. The next day you have another go, and then wonder why you found it so hard.
I also feel like I'm beating my head against a plastered concrete wall in a Body Corporate (BC) for which I'm currently a committee member. I'm one of those people with a 'C' tattoed on their forehead which people read as, "Pick me as your committee member." I need to get something else tattooed on there...maybe "F- You" which Chris read in stylised Gothic letters on the face of a passenger on a flight. Chris was staring at the man's face, trying to work out what the tattoo said. When Chris's brain coalesced the letters into words, he swiftly moved his gaze to anywhere else on the plane. F- you would work...no one would pick me for a committee! It might, however, be a tattoo too far.
The BC I'm writing about, has a significant issue with their BC management company. Through being on the newly elected committee, I have discovered there is no contract between the owners and the BC management – no contract, ever. The management company minute meetings selectively – the ones that are useful to them earning money. Both a contract and minuting all meetings are required by legislation. The BC management company also claim tens of thousands of dollars from the BC without an invoice or evidence of work done, then pay themselves. This is all pretty bad – our committee set about finding a better company with whom to work. Then we put out a postal vote, with the background information, asking people if they'd like to change companies.
The vote isn't yet complete but already it's clear a significant proportion owners think the existing management company is great. They are flat out denying there are, or have been, any issues. How can this be, given we have provided evidence of illegal behaviours?
I thought, why don't I write a blog about this - when the facts apparently don't matter. Then I had a vague recollection of writing something similar. I sure did - When Facts Get In The Way. I read my own post...how come I'd forgotten everything I'd learned in the past?
"...researchers investigating acceptance of different forms of invasive pest control in New Zealand found... that, rather than wanting a barrage of information, the most successful approach was discussion to reach a consensus. People want to feel included and heard, and to trust the people with whom they are interacting."
Oh, crap. I'm pretty sure this is the problem.
I'd erroneously assumed the other committee members were more linked into the mass of owners, communicating with them regularly. The other members have owned places in the complex for around a decade and lived in them, unlike us for whom it's a place to visit sporadically. I thought they'd have been socialising the concept that the BC managers were doing a poor job and hearing the views of people who had a different view. Turns out I was quite wrong.
First off, our chair is convinced that, if we amass enough facts and present them, people will be convinced. This isn't working given people's flat-out denial of any issues. Second, about half the owners don't live in the complex full time, so contact with them is sporadic at best. Third, there's no record of the number of times the BC management company have underperformed and the BC committee has tried to get rid of them because...the BC management company don't take minutes at inconvenient meetings!
How did I also manage to forget that, given the issues at pa harakeke with shared water and roading, Chris and I said, "No more shared assets." Why did we buy into a complex with even more sharing involved? Maybe because we're humans and humans are inherently, desperately hopeful? We rapidly forget the past in the hope the future will be better.
I'm a lot closer to despair than hope on the BC management company front. So I'll put my headphones back on and dive into music editing. There's something calming and cathartic about repetitively shifting waveforms around a screen and listening to the same phrase over and over till it sounds just right. At least until I find my next head-beating wall in Logic!
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