We don't appreciate free things

[Pergamos]

One of the posts in weirdoverse made me think of it, he had comics, nobody was buying, so he gave them away.  They ended up thrown away by the folks who took them.  We tend to view things we get for free as garbage, even though it's not uncommon for them to be extremely difficult to find for a price, and if they can be the price is high.  To appreciate them we need a gatekeeper, someone who keeps us from taking as much as we want, or assigns who gets what, or something of the sort.

[chaotic neutral observer]

Robert Cialdini, in his book "Influence", recounts the following anecdote:

The owner of a jewelry store was having difficulty selling a shipment of turquoise jewelry.  Finally, just before leaving on a trip, she left a note for an employee: "Mark all items in this display case price x 1/2."
When she returned from her trip, she found all of the turquoise had been sold; except that her employee had misread the handwritten note, and had instead doubled the price.
The tourists apparently didn't want to buy cheap turquoise, but were quite enamored of the expensive kind.

Soundtrack to this post:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5KU34DrrPI

[The Johnny]

When I actually did field research interviews or however its translated, I developed a nice trick regarding scarcity of time.

Some fellows ran interviews until the subject didnt feel like going on or until they found enough things of substance, which sometimes ran for 5 hours... the subject waxing on about irrelevant information and telling the juicy bits in the last 20 minutes.

Standard procedure speaks of declaring a time-frame of an hour, but people that followed that got nothing.

What I did was declaring one hour time-frame, making the subject know 15 minutes before-hand how long wed been running... then extending the session to a total of an hour and a half. The last 40 minutes were the only ones where i got any useful information.

Mind you, it was in the interviewer and the subjects mutual interest to give said information... but either they thought they had more time before standard cut-off time kicked in, or on the longer interviews abused the interviewer as a cathartic medium.

[The Johnny]

A different manifestation can be presented in pro-bono therapeutic settings.

Not only do people not get into deeper nor important things - they also start resenting the therapist and generating any of a number of different types of negative transference.

That's why if it's even pro-bono we have learned to always charge an ammount, even if its just a symbolical quantity... so that the patient doesnt feel indebted and resentful, and that it assigns at least some value and appropriate use of the time.

[altered]

Interesting. I've had a bad history with therapists, but I sanity checked myself.

I don't seem to be impacted by that bias in my particular cases, I think.

The therapists in question ignored that I had my own thing I was doing and instead of supporting something that was working for me decided to treat me like a zoo animal because I had so many weird diagnoses. And the one exception to that rule I have no issue with, she actually fought with my mother for me, and she was as free as the others.

[The Johnny]

Interesting. I've had a bad history with therapists, but I sanity checked myself.

I don't seem to be impacted by that bias in my particular cases, I think.

The therapists in question ignored that I had my own thing I was doing and instead of supporting something that was working for me decided to treat me like a zoo animal because I had so many weird diagnoses. And the one exception to that rule I have no issue with, she actually fought with my mother for me, and she was as free as the others.

I hate the guts of the grand majority of people working in "mental health", tbh on a deep level none knows what they're doing besides furthering their own personal ideology and worldview or satisfying their messianic compulsions.

I mean, it's good that it worked out for you, but therapists shouldnt intervene in patient's lives like that - unless it was a social worker type of person, those have different restrictions and working guidelines.

[altered]

It was necessary: my mother was trying to forcibly disrupt my therapy, and wouldn't listen to me. I was an adult, she had no right to try and force her way in.

[rong]

a free cat is not a good deal

[altered]

I have taken many free cats and never regretted it.

[Pergamos]

a free cat is not a good deal

Better deal than an expensive cat...

[LMNO]

Similarly, I've found that a business meeting always takes as long as you have it booked for.  Even if it's a 10 minute conversation, it will take the entire hour to finish it.  People are often shocked when I call a meeting over after 20 minutes.

[Doktor Howl]

Similarly, I've found that a business meeting always takes as long as you have it booked for.  Even if it's a 10 minute conversation, it will take the entire hour to finish it.  People are often shocked when I call a meeting over after 20 minutes.

Meetings last as long as the laziest person wants them to last, unless you call them done.

[LMNO]

We have a joke button with the word "swirling" on it, because far too often the meeting consists of four people insisting on repeating the same points over and over.  It's quite satisfying to smack that thing.

[Faust]

Similarly, I've found that a business meeting always takes as long as you have it booked for.  Even if it's a 10 minute conversation, it will take the entire hour to finish it.  People are often shocked when I call a meeting over after 20 minutes.

Meetings last as long as the laziest person wants them to last, unless you call them done.

Hey, its not always laziness, god I love a good filibuster through lunch

[Doktor Howl]

We have a joke button with the word "swirling" on it, because far too often the meeting consists of four people insisting on repeating the same points over and over.  It's quite satisfying to smack that thing.

I have my own way of dealing with that.