Games People Play

However, it does appear that I've won my battle against my dental billing woes.

Yesterday I got a message from the guy handling the accounts receivable for my dental clinic, and he confirmed that I had indeed been billed using the wrong fee schedule, and that not only is the bill for $720 I received in error, but that they owe me about $230 due to overpayment last spring! Woo-hoo! That's nearly a $1000 swing in my finances, which is obviously a terrific thing.

The funny part is that if they hadn't billed me, then I wouldn't have been motivated to find out that my payment in the spring was in error. So, I guess it all works out. But I'm certainly going to scrutinize future bills and EOBs from my insurance company carefully.

I need to call the AR fellow back on Monday since he left early on Thursday for vacation. He said I could either have them credit my account against future services, or they could cut me a check. Naturally I plan to get the check. I'd also like to get something in writing stating that the bill I have now is void (hey, they sent it to me in writing, I'd like the nullification in writing!).

It's great to nearly have this monkey off my back!

Today the entire Server Solutions department at Apple - which includes my own department of WebObjects - went out to a party at Campo de Bocce in Los Gatos. I don't think there was a particular occasion for this, I think Apple's departments just like to have social events from time to time.

WebObjects went to Campo be Bocce last April, and the experience is pretty much the same. Actually, the food was better this time around, even though the dishes were nearly the same. But we basically spent the afternoon playing bocce ball, including a single-elimination tournament (my team got knocked out in the second round in a very tight match).

We had fun, although Tom - who I think is underwhelmed by any form of entertainment invented before about 1980 - kept making fun of the game and saying, "Have we lost yet? Can we go now?" Laughing all the while, of course. I described his method of throwing the ball as a "don't care" motion.

We left a little on the early side because Ray was starting to fell ill. When we got back, well, it was nearly 4 pm and none of us were in the mood to do much work, so we played Quake for a while instead, and most of us left around 5:30. I did notice that many people in the department didn't even come back to work from Campo de Bocce, so I didn't feel bad about that. (It's often difficult to tell sometimes exactly the attitude that management has to working hours on days like this. Apple is a little schizophrenic between being a hard-working environment and a laid-back one.)

This week I finished reading Games People Play by Eric Berne, M.D. David Zink loaned this to me a couple of weeks ago after I'd been telling him and CJ about Adrienne and me breaking up, and in the wake of Karen's observation to me that I tend to say what I mean and take things other people say at face value.

Games People Play analyzes the "games" that occur between people in order to get certain reactions from other people. The games analyzed are generally unhealthy games, such as "Debtor" where a person goes into debt in order to get sympathy from his friends over his predicament; "Cops and Robbers" where a criminal commits crimes not for the loot, but in order to match wits with the police and probably to get caught, or "Let's You and Him Fight" where a woman (or society) contrives to have two men compete for her hand.

The general idea is that in a "game", two (or more) people have what on the surface is a straightforward, mature exchange, but there's a subtext where one or more parties really wants to get a certain response from the other person(s) which gives them emotional satisfaction. For instance, contriving a situation where one can catch another person doing something outside their agreement, or attempting to get sympathy or reassurance from one's friends about something, or even trying to avoid intimacy and genuine connection with other people. The games are often self-destructive or destructive to others, although each can be "played" at varying degrees (a mild conversational form to a hard-core, life-threatening form). The book naturally says that it's more healthy for a person to avoid game-playing and to strive instead to come to enjoy real connection-building with other people based on their merits rather than contrived situations.

The book is short (about 190 pp) and easy to read. The idea makes for an interesting way to look at how people relate: For instance, it's been clear to me for a while that I want to have attention and recognition for things that I do or experience that I think are neat, and that I sometimes want to elicit pity from people when things aren't going well. And I do engage in some manipulation to get the reactions that I want.

The book is mainly concerned with identifying games, rather than finding ways to short-circuit them (which it mainly leaves to professional therapy). It's also clearly a pop psychology book, short on details, and some of the "games" are described only briefly. Plus, it was written in 1964, and there isn't any information explaining how (if at all) this theory is viewed in the present day.