Ok i’ve talked about this before. When you rant, you do so mostly to feel better. Get things out of your system. Just get rid of some trash so that you can structure the rest of your thoughts. And so all you need is a listener. A counterparty. A good listener. And it’s done. I’m not saying it’s easy to find a good listener. Those types are hard to come by. But it’s mostlty a generalist’s job. Whether you are pissed about your job or with your girlfriend or with the Prime Minister, and you want to rant, you need not find a different person for each!
Cribbing, as I’d mentioned earlier, is much harder. You need to find the right people to crib to. You need to organize your thoughts. You need to be able to ask the right questions. And you need to interpret people’s vague answers and figure out the component of their answer along the direction of your question. And then fit it back into the larger question.
Cribbing is also an art. First you need to find the right counterparty. Next, you need to make it clear to the other person that you are cribbing and not ranting, and so you need a solution. Then, as I mentioned in the last paragraph, you need to give the crib a good structure. And you should be able to objectively ask those right questions without letting your emotions and feelings come in the way. You should get over all those “I don’t want to pain this person with my rant” kind of feelings and think you’re just asking the other person for some specific help.
From a macro perspective, you need to keep separate accounts of rants and cribs. People are more likely to get cheesed of if you rant to them (unless of course they are close to you etc.) but not so much if you crib – I’m mostly talking about bad listeners (which is most of the people) here. If you are cribbing, the structure in your questions and statements helps the other person and it won’t be too heavy on them. also, they have something to do in the whole buisness -? to think of a solution, rather than to just sit and listen, so it’s more enjoyable for them.
Sometimes when I feel like cribbing to someone I feel “ok i’ve been cribbing to this person a lot nowadays and he/she may not like it”. I need to figure out if I’m going to rant or crib, and also filter the historical data on this parameter. And then apply the rule I put above. It’s going to lead to a much more optimal solution.