Collecting ethics

[ynot]

23 minutes ago, Uncle Siphuncle said:

Those things frustrate me as well, esp after getting up in the middle of the night and driving hours.  Solo solves all that, as does careful choice of field companions.

Many occured on open field trips with a rock club.

The others no longer get invited to dig with Me.

[Kane]

I find muttering obscenities to myself and wearing a pretty dress keeps most people at a good distance away from me.  

 

More to the serious, I mostly collect solo or with field companions. When doing the latter, joining up holes to form a bench is fine. Everyone I collect with has an innate sense of personal space; if someone is working on an area, whatever they find from it is theirs as they put the work into it, even if some heavier stuff requires assistance. For instance, if the block is too heavy and requires two people to dislodge it, I consider that block the "territory" of the person who initially wanted it out. That being said, there's a lot of sharing of finds going on, particularly if one of our field companions is getting skunked and you're filling your bucket with an embarrassment of fossil riches.

[Walt]

3 minutes ago, Kane said:

I find muttering obscenities to myself and wearing a pretty dress keeps most people at a good distance away from me.

You've been hanging around @Ptychodus04 too much..... 

[ynot]

7 minutes ago, Kane said:

I mostly collect solo or with field companions. When doing the latter, joining up holes to form a bench is fine.

I also do this, and often share My hole with the others. Sometimes We just rotate digging in one hole. But crystal digging is a little different than fossil digging, as the crystal holes can be more localized, and limited in space.

[Ptychodus04]

17 minutes ago, Walt said:

You've been hanging around @Ptychodus04 too much..... 

 

It's a skirt. If you're going to insult me do it properly.

[FossilDAWG]

Back in June I had an incident that I'm afraid I didn't handle as well as I might have.  I was collecting on a multi-club trip and had found a productive site that I was excavating with my geological pick.  A teenage kid set down and started to dig very close to me; there was no need to get so close as there was a lot of area to work in.  Then he kept getting closer and closer, so I had to be very careful about swinging the pick.  As I found things I'd set them on a sheet of aluminum foil , and I finally had enough and barked at the kid rather bruskly when he started picking up things off the foil.  At that point his mother (who was collecting a ways up the creek) chastised me, saying the kid was autistic.  I think Mom should have kept better tabs on what her kid was doing, but I should also have spoken up sooner before I was provoked to anger.  I felt bad about it afterwards, especially as my grandson has autism and I should have thought about that possibility.  Anyway the lesson is (besides speak up sooner) if someone is totally failing to pick up on cues and is crowding you, consider that they may have a reason for their behavior other than deliberate rudeness, and keep your cool as you ask them to back off.

 

Don

[Uncle Siphuncle]

43 minutes ago, FossilDAWG said:

Back in June I had an incident that I'm afraid I didn't handle as well as I might have.  I was collecting on a multi-club trip and had found a productive site that I was excavating with my geological pick.  A teenage kid set down and started to dig very close to me; there was no need to get so close as there was a lot of area to work in.  Then he kept getting closer and closer, so I had to be very careful about swinging the pick.  As I found things I'd set them on a sheet of aluminum foil , and I finally had enough and barked at the kid rather bruskly when he started picking up things off the foil.  At that point his mother (who was collecting a ways up the creek) chastised me, saying the kid was autistic.  I think Mom should have kept better tabs on what her kid was doing, but I should also have spoken up sooner before I was provoked to anger.  I felt bad about it afterwards, especially as my grandson has autism and I should have thought about that possibility.  Anyway the lesson is (besides speak up sooner) if someone is totally failing to pick up on cues and is crowding you, consider that they may have a reason for their behavior other than deliberate rudeness, and keep your cool as you ask them to back off.

 

Don

An unfortunate series of events.  Generally speaking, whenever possible, I find it best to communicate boundaries early, before the awkwardness escalates.  But those open roster trips can certainly introduce too many human factors to anticipate.

[Bobby Rico]

Hi Don

I have worked for year with autistic students and all them have issues with understanding personal space as you know. If I had taken some autistic students on a fossil digging field trip I would not let them invade someone’s space especially considering the tools that are used around then and if they did invade someone space I would be very upset with myself letting them get into a dangerous situation . You made a very good point at the end ( I  tried to quote it but the button is not working for me) lesson learned and nobody was hurt. Don’t blame yourself the mother should have intervened straight away.