So I’m already feeling inundated by news coverage, SNL parodies, and online chatter about the 2008 Presidential Election and we are well over a year away from the election itself. The saddest part is that we’ve already spent most of 2007 hearing about potential candidates and wondering if Obama can beat Hillary, or if Guliani is conservative enough for the far right. I’m sick of it all.
I understand that this is important for the future of our country, and I am not apathetic when it comes to politics. But I’m afraid that our representatives in government have become so obsessed with winning elections that they leave little time to actually govern. This is an epidemic that crosses all party lines. The power players in Washington are so consumed with beating the other side that they forget they are there to represent the citizens of this country.
If you’ve read this blog for a long time, you know my favorite show of all time is The West Wing and that my favorite character on that show was Joshua Lyman. There are many things that I liked about that show, but among my favorite parts of the show was how much it demonstrated the venom that can consume many of those who help to run our government. I remember many episodes where Josh would say something similar to, “I hate these people, I want to destroy them” when talking about anyone who is opposing him.
I will keep asking this question until someone in our government can give me a good answer: “When are we going to have a government of the people, by the people, and (especially) for the people?
I was walking through the cafeteria at work yesterday afternoon to get some ice for my water bottle when the televisions blew up with the news that Paris Hilton was headed to court in handcuffs. I had to get back to work, but I’m sure there was blanket coverage until the news broke that she was going back to jail to serve the remaining 40 days of her sentence. Now if the television would have been tuned to the E! network or another entertainment station I would have understood, but it was CNN that dropped everything to cover a misdemeanor hearing.
I grew up during the O.J. Simpson trial and I didn’t know what a landmark trial that really was. The trial itself wasn’t as important as the coverage the trial received. It completely saturated our entire culture: news stations covered each day’s events, late night talk shows and SNL made jokes, and Marcia Clark, Johnnie Cochran, Judge Ito, and Mark Fuhrman became household names. This trial was somewhat news, but the extra interest came from the celebrity of the defendant.
Over a decade later, the lives of celebrities have become “news.” If Lindsey Lohan gets in a fender-bender, it gets 4 hours of coverage on all of the major news stations. When Brittney Spears shows off what she should have kept covered, every newspaper and website covers the story. There seems to be a special place for Paris Hilton (who hasn’t really ever done anything in her life that is worth mentioning other than being born) and everything she does seems to be on the evening news.
There is plenty going on in the world that is newsworthy. The U.S. is fighting two wars in two countries and the administration is making noise about starting a third. AIDS and malaria are running rampant in Africa and abject poverty is one of the major causes. Human trafficking and forced slavery is still a major issue in a significant portion of the world. Millions of people have died or been forced from their homes in the Darfur genocide in Sudan. We are facing major crises in America such as health care, taxes, education, social security, and political corruption just to name a few. But who cares about that because Paris Hilton is going back to jail for 40 days. All that other stuff can just wait until she’s free again.
Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro was euthanized yesterday after a long and pointless struggle to overcome a broken leg. Now I don’t want to seem callus or heartless, but why are people making such a big deal about a horse? Have people seen Seabiscuit a few too many times? It’s just a horse people!
I know there are people who have sent flowers and presents to Barbaro to help him “get better.” I know that people have said prayers and held vigils in for Barbaro’s recovery. What is wrong with those people? Over 500,000 people have died from the genocide in Darfur. There are wars still going on in Iraq and Afghanistan where thousands of people have died and many more die each day. I’m sorry but there are a lot more things for me to worry about than the life of a race horse.
Why is it that people have such a hard time saying something to your face? Why is it so difficult for people who have a problem to come and talk to you directly about the situation and try to resolve it without anyone else being involved?
Let me explain. When I returned from my lunch break yesterday afternoon, there was a message from someone who wanted me to do a rush copy job for her. This wasn’t a big deal, she needed 1500 copies in about an hour which I can do no problem. When she actually submitted the job to me it turned out that she wanted the copies in color. I politely told her that it would take significantly longer to complete in color, probably 5 or 6 hours. (My black & white copier prints 85 pages per minute, my color copier can only print 11 pages per minute.) I offered to run the job in black & white for her and complete it by the time she needed the job. She accepted and I ran the job. End of story, right?
Not so fast. I got a call from my manager this afternoon telling me that the person who requested the job went to the manager that oversees our department for GM and complained about me. This then was communicated to my account manager and then to my site manager. So now all of these people are involved and wondering if I am doing a good enough job because one lady couldn’t get her color copies in an impossible time frame.
The frustrating thing to me is that I spoke to her several times throughout the process and everything was polite and professional. She never gave me the slightest indication that she was unsatisfied. If there was a problem, why wouldn’t she say something to me while the job was being processed? I understand that it was not exactly what she wanted, but what she was asking for was impossible.
This has been one of the biggest sources of frustrations for me since I started working full time. I am a very direct person. If I have a problem or issue with someone, I will talk to that person directly first before I would even think about going over their head. I just can’t understand why they need to go to the top and make me look bad to three levels of management over something that is not really that serious.