Doanryo

I just counted that there are 87 different doan jobs per week that need filling , and right now, I am needing to change, or looking at changing, 26 of them, which involves a certain amount of juggling, a fair amount of training, and a lot of notes and emails to make sure everyone knows what they are going to be doing. My head doan Daigan just went off to Ireland this morning with Paul, and I am relying on Charlie, who has been the afternoon head doan, to fill that vacancy. Charlie was away sitting sesshin last week, so I had to go and search for missing people and volunteers myself, which was not always easy - while the traditional zen student's response to any request is 'hai!', meaning 'yes, of course', going into the residents' lounge at five o'clock and asking people if they would be willing to be jiko for afternoon zazen did not elicit anything like that level of willingness (I am going to name no names here).
Still, for some people, a new doan job is a great opportunity to learn a new skill and enable the smooth running of the morning or afternoon schedule, and for some people there is a worry that if I move them from the job they are doing it means that they are not doing it well enough, or as just happened in one case, if I even say I want to talk to them about their doan jobs, that they have done something wrong and that I am going to scold them...