GETTING WHAT YOU WANT/ARE ENTITLED TO

So I received a call at work the other day from a guy who was very upset that I couldn’t help him. He told me he was “visually impaired” and went on about how I was being unfair to him, all the while dropping phrases like “Lawyers” and “Americans with Disabilities Act” whenever I suggested all the alternative ways I could accommodate him. Obviously fed up with my inability to give him exactly what he wanted, he asked to speak to my manager.

NOTE – the reason I couldn’t help this guy had nothing to do with company policy, etc. I tried to do everything in my power to help him. But in order to give him what he wanted, I would’ve had to have taken something from another customer.

My manager essentially told him everything I did and he then reiterated the illegality of our inability to help him, again citing that visual impairment was a disability covered in the “Americans with Disabilities Act.” He then asked to speak to her manager. At which point, I lost track of the conversation.

It struck a chord with me and my co-workers because we see and hear a lot of this: people complaining loudly about not “getting what they pay for” and expecting us to kowtow to their rather loud and angry demands. And, as a rule, I personally don’t approve of people “making a scene” in order to get their way. It sends the message that “if you complain loud enough, you can get anything you want.”

However, I told this story to a co-worker at my other job (who has legal experience) and she sided with the customer.

“You have to give them what they want. It may be ‘unfair,’ but it’s the law.”

Now I’m not posing that we all argue the fairness of the “Americans with Disabilities” Act—let’s not even get that abstract—I’m asking how you would’ve handled a call like that. Do you agree that the man should’ve gotten what he wanted?

FYI - I’m guessing that since I didn’t hear anything from my manager’s manager that the customer got what he wanted.

Idolatry

Who are a couple of artists you admire and why?

general education makes no sense

if i'm paying tens of thousands of dollars to studying something specific

why should some fat guys decide that it would be to my benefit to waste time on general(lly) unrelated subjects?

is this just some ploy to make more money? to force us to take more and more classes?

why should educational institutions make this decision for us? shouldn't we be able to decide for ourselves whether or not we want to take unrelated classes or not? and the marketplace should determine whether or not this was a successful decision - the decision should not be made beforehand by the status quo

- will you hire a psychologist who has spent 3 years studying nothing but his science or one who has spent 4 and half of it was full of entry level introductions to a variety of unrelated subjects? your answer to that question, by the way, ultimately shoudln't matter, because people should choose whichever they want. there needs to be more options, more reform, more experimentation in education. it needs to be more open.

gen ed = high school again

this rant is really unstructured (apologies) but for something more intellectually interesting try this text: deschooling society by ivan illich. easily one of the most enlightening things i've ever read.

libertarianism and the environment

i found this interview with republican presidential candidate ron paul to be extremely interesting - before this i wouldn't have thought a libertarian government would be good for the environment. but if the law is enforced, and the protection of people from injury to themselves or to their property is really what government strives for - it seems like it might work, and work well, to th ebenefit of everyone and the environment. what do you think?

Lag

They say this...

Several studies indicate that most blogs are abandoned soon after creation (with 60% to 80% abandoned within one month, depending on whose figures you choose to believe) and that few are regularly updated. [http://www.caslon.com.au/weblogprofile1.htm]

And I'm beginning to think a lot of us are going to fall into that category except for Ev, Fred, me, and the old reliable, Stuart.

But this leads into my question: How serious is everyone about blogging? Given that this statistic is almost spot-on accurate even among our own circle, what is the appeal of starting a blog, and more importantly, what is the appeal of maintaining a blog? And what can motivate someone to do just that - to keep it afloat and not washed away with the rest of internet detritus.

Fear of Teenagers

This is an issue we've actually discussed and probably doesn't need to extend further than need be, but I believe we still haven't found a definitive solution.

Mahea, Evan, Stuart and I have an annoying neighbor kid who doesn't quite understand that he's not part of our group of friends, just an acquaintance with whom we are cordial. I treat him as nicely as I can, but he's not encouraging it by infringing upon every opportunity to tag along. Even Vince has experienced this. I tell him I'm working (which actually isn't a lie) but the truth is I can work in the presence of others quite easily. Just not people who will stare over my shoulder and will break my concentration by asking questions about what I'm doing - and then offering comments and anecdotes that do not elicit the slightest interest in me.

I'm really annoyed with this kid and I don't know how to keep him from pouncing on me every chance he gets. Subtlety obviously doesn't work. Maybe we should use more erudite language around him so he gets lost and can't participate? I dunno. Something. Anything. Help.

Damned If You Don't

Again an NPR article has got me riled up.

Similar to my indecision regarding "what do you do when people are assholes", what do you do when laws and policies can be abused? I have a hard time deciding whether a program or policy should exist when you know it will help some, but also is sure to be abused by others.

There was apparently a hostage situation recently that ended in deaths because authorities couldn't get paperwork through the propper channels in time. The elongated process took nine hours, and in that time things went bad. The reaction from our rational and forward thinking government is that searches and arrests that affect our "national security" should not be hindered by court approval. Now the problem with this, I think most agree, is the potential to have a government or any powerful group posess dangerous power. We don't ever want our government to be unaccountable for violations of our rights.

At the child care subsidy agency where I work, we are fully aware that our services are being abused. People are on government cash aid who appear to have plenty of money. People claim to be caring for children who we actually see working at Vons while they're supposed to be watching kids. People claim to be watching children who can't possibly be watching them according to the parents' accounts of when they bring the children there. Most of the time it's hard to prove. When it's staring us in the face and we report it, it takes months to process, dozens of our own hours to prepare, and may or may not be provable as far as courts are concerned. It's frustrating because its all of our money that is being used to pay dishonest people. At the same time, there are UCLA students who call just to let us know that they couldn't go to school if it weren't for the service. There are familes of five children who's single mother parent reports 10 hour shifts at Target. There are families that we meet who are so screwed up that I'm just glad that their getting some money so that their kids don't starve.

So I'm torn. Should we be concerned with the individual, the few who would benefit from special care and more flexible laws, or do we make sure that nobody can abuse the system? Is our financial and civil freedom as a whole more important than the lives of the few who may suffer? I'm inclined to sympathize with society in the case of the PATRIOT (it's an acronym I just found out) Act. I'm inclined to side with the children when it comes to my job.

Maybe it's a matter of frequency. Maybe for every five who need government aid, one abuses it. Maybe an unchecked government would make it harder for ten citizens to live for each one life it saved. Cost/benefit analysis. It just seems wrong for us to allow any abuse of noble ambitions, or to allow suffering to persist.