complaints

Meeting with the "high heid-yin" yesterday left me confused and disturbed. I had been hoping that I might get some resolution, so I could put things behind me and have a fresh start when we move in a couple of weeks. Suffice it to say I think this is unlikely to happen within that timescale.

In my professional role, I have had training in dealing with complaints. It seems there is no such training for ministers within our denomination, even ones such as this particular "high heid-yin" who has supposedly been trained in conflict resolution.

I came across a useful concept called "agent-regret". In other words, if something awful happens, you usually feel sorry for the person it happened to. If you are a bystander, then this is regret. If, however, you were somehow involved in what happened, even if it is not your fault, then it is appropriate to have a deeper level of regret. This is "agent-regret".
But if the agent in this case were to say "I don't need to apologise because it wasn't my fault", then this causes problems, because they are not acting in the manner expected, and this inflicts further hurt.

It seems that for some people "sorry" is indeed the hardest word to say. But saying you are sorry for someone's distress is not the same as admitting liability for it. Maybe some ministers need to be taught that.