Trembling at the Sound of Their Silence

On Tuesday, we once again played our dangerous game with our old adversary....the University. It reminded me of the heady days of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin all right.

Tuesday's session was weird, but, unfortunately, all part of the bargaining game. The GTFF gave the UO our counter-proposals on non-economic issues - vacation, office space, faculty training, catering, safety - the UO sat passively looking pissy about everything we said, received our proposals without much comment, caucused for about 15 minutes, then informed us they had nothing further to say and we could all go home.

Anybody who witnessed this session and was not familiar with the bargaining game might have thought that we were very far apart on these proposals and that things were not going well. In truth, we're pretty close on these proposals and we probably could have hammered out any differences between the two parties in about 15 minutes of serious negotiation.

So, why the disparity between reality and pose? It goes something like this:

At the end of bargaining on Friday, I mentioned to the UO that we would be bringing non-economic proposals that the GTFF thought would get us really close to settling. The UO expressed pleasure. But, when we made the proposals on Tuesday, the UO had to act all pissed off about them. You see, by reacting negatively, the GTFF is put in a position where we start to wonder that we did "wrong." Why don't they like our proposals? Isn't this what they said they wanted? Could we have done better? What can we do so that they like them next time? These are all the questions that pop up in your mind when you give someone something that you think they are going to like, but they don't. Now we have 10 days to sit and stew and wonder and try to figure out how we can please the other side next time.

Also, now I am in a position of discomfort. Because the UO proposes next, I should have 10 relatively peaceful days of just waiting to hear their response. By reacting negatively to my proposals, my 10 days just transformed into 10 days of worry about what they might be bringing. How bad can it get? What didn't they like? Not knowing what it was they didn't like, my mind races around trying to come up with compromises to the dozens of different possible objections.

And then, days from now, they can walk in the room and agree to almost everything we proposed. Relief! Joy! Gratitude! Now, I have forgotten that it was actually our compromises that got us to agreement and I am grateful to the UO for not doing all the horrible things I have been brooding on for 10 days. They are heroes! We got what we wanted! Maybe we should go easier on them on the economic stuff, no? Isn't great to agree! Even if they modify our proposals to benefit them, I am still glad, because their proposals are not as bad as we imagined they might be.

So this is the game. Hopefully, knowing the game helps me avoid falling in the trap. We'll find out I guess. Maybe by writing this, I am changing their strategy. Maybe I was wrong all along and they hate the proposals and we in for some fighting. We'll find out next Friday. In the meantime, I think I'll just sit back and listen to the rock and roll.