I have two complaints at the Human Rights Commission here in Montreal, and I went to mediation for both, thinking that it was a good idea for one and I was being a bad person if I didn't for the other.
Big mistake.
It turns out that mediation is more like arm wrestling than like trying to find common ground.
Also, the mediator and I did not communicate well. I think I'm a lot more disabled than I look. I never really realized how disabled I was before because things just did not work, and I could not see why. But now that I am trying, I can see better where the gap is, but don't know how to get other people to also see it.
I think she was so keen on finding a settlement (that's what she does for a living, after all) that that's what she was focussed on, rather than my needs. And I had doubts but there wasn't really room for discussing them, or even having them. She was like a dog with a bone, but the bone was my complaint, and I had a hard time getting it back from her. She didn't realize that I wasn't communicating well, and that I needed her to ask clarifying questions instead of charging ahead. Twice when I tried to corner her and get her to send the complaint to investigations, she wanted to meet in person so that we could communicate better, but of course writing is my preferred mode of communication. I don't think I ever got her to understand that. It was almost like being railroaded. I was being carried in the wrong direction along against my will by her energy and focus, and it took me a long time to get her to see that. Months.
At any rate, I would not do mediation again without my own lawyer, or an advocate of some sort, to help me with the communication.
Both cases have gone to investigations. It will take a couple of years for each of them. After my wasting close to a year on mediation for them.
Oh well.
I think life is a lot easier when you have a good lawyer.
26 Mar 2013, 10:13 am
