Life gets better as you replace transactions with relationships. – from Excellent Advice for Living
This is incredible advice. I think that much of the complaints about the US from the rest of the world is how transactional we are. Whether this is with stuff we buy or neighbors or how we eat dinner or how we treat sports, we’ve often become transactional. What’s the best, fastest, easiest, most convenient, etc. We often want a quid pro quo for things we do.
When you spend more time with others, when you value the experience and what you get from it, life is better.
It can be harder, slower, etc., but I think it’s better.
I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.
To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.
Voice of the DBA 
I think you’re spot on. Most folks don’t even realize how transactional they really are. And when the benefits of the transaction consistently and always fall only on one side of the ledger, the other side tends to get abusive.
Bloggers and folks that share stuff on gh have this problem. They give and give yet still get commenters and issues raised where folks won’t even list the problem or the repro steps. It’s abusive and makes folks not want to continue to contribute to the community.
Socially, my biggest pet peeve is going out with coworkers for drinks. The bill comes and it becomes a 10 minute analysis of who had the Old Milwaukee vs the Old Fashioned with 3 fingers of Michters. Meanwhile, the poor waitress has to deal with splitting checks and she knows the tip will be abysmal. In these circumstances I always just grab the check and pay it. I view it as the cost of doing business with transactional people. Like you said, I value the experience.
fwiw, I have a little mental trick I do to try to remember NOT to be a transactional person. When someone says something like “thank you, what can i do for you” or equiv…I try to remember to respond with “I know you’d do the same for me.”
People tend to remember these things.
As a consultant (or in my quasi-consultative role with microsoft) I’ve found this generates far more business and goodwill then can ever be gotten with scrutinizing timesheets and getting paid for every little line item.
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On people that share: I tend to just ignore (or block/ban) people that can’t accept help or knowledge on the author’s terms.
On happy hours, I just walk away. Tell me what you want me to pay and I will. I’ll tip more, likely because if you’re worried about a few dollars over drinks, you’re likely not taking care of the server.
I like the trick. I’ll try that.
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