Grumbling

One of the few benefits I've ever found for working at Target is that I'm beginning to understand more why St. Benedict is so strongly opposed to grumbling among the monks. You see, grumbling is one of the most popular pasttimes among my co-workers, and it really does hurt productivity and decrease folks inclination to work hard. Unfortunately it's also grounded in real problems in how the store is run. Don't get me wrong, some of the bosses are great, but the employees aren't equally good about doing their job, and it is relatively hard to get fired from Target.

I've also gotten some lessons in the evils of grumbling recently by listening to Anglican news recently. You see, the bishop of the diocese of San Joaquin was deposed, but some folks think that the canons weren't followed to the letter. They even have some reason to think so. The results look similar and mostly seem to be increasing disaffection from TEC among those who are less then happy with the current leadership. It also gets used to say that liberals who care more about their own agenda than canon law are out to get the conservatives by any means possible legal or illegal.

So what might be a more appropriate way of responding to each of the circumstances that are currently leading to grumbling. In the case of Target one could try talking to the Store manager or the HR person. Things might not get better immediately, but at least the store manager believes in doing his job right.

In the case of San Joaquin, it is a little less clear, but as far as I can see once the matter has been mentioned to whichever bishops one knows the matter is best left for them to respond to the question as a house, or not which would be a sort of response as well. One might also ask Canterbury if he will recognize the deposition, but beyond that the matter should probably be left strictly alone.

Perhaps even bringing up these topics here is a sort of gumbling, but I hope I have not slipped to far in that direction while thinking about what I might learn from the bad examples of others.