furnaceface: (Default)
Jono Starsmore ([personal profile] furnaceface) wrote in [community profile] fandomhigh2014-02-07 09:10 am
Entry tags:

Coping With Change, Friday, Period 3

//Right, so, the blame game.// Jono walked into the room today looking tired but triumphant. //I was up all bloody night re-planning this class, because something, somewhere, replaced all of my notes with photographs of bags of garbage sitting at the bottom of a cliff. No, I don't know why. I'm going to say it was the island. That seems to be the case, these days, more often than not.//

Garbage. He couldn't even begin to fathom what in the world was up with that.

//See, the thing about change, like with my new-found collection of rubbish heap photos, is that it's often not our own fault. Unless you have the power to cause natural disasters or you're a large disagreeable wolf, you probably didn't personally blow that house down. Somebody is ill and then they pass- Nothing you could've done about that. You might look further into it, perhaps the construction of the building was faulty or there was malpractice at play. Or perhaps you're on the flip side, looking to sue Planters because they didn't put a warning label on their product, warning you that it might contain nuts.//

That last bit was said mostly in jest, but there were people out there, he was sadly sure, who had most likely tried. Mr. Peanut would be truly disappointed.

//In a lot of cases, however, the blame game is something else. It acts as an excuse to not deal with the situation. It gives rise to a, 'well, they broke it, let them' fix it mentality that gets in the way of moving forward, of repairing the damage done or finding some way to counter it. It's where you end up with scapegoats, where people who might actually have nothing to do with a situation suddenly find themselves in the thick of it because rather than fix or learn to cope with the consequences of change, somebody else decided to pass the blame off on them.//

Jono shrugged his shoulders and held up what were, indeed, twenty-seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photos of garbage with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was.

//Today, I was sorely tempted to come in here and say, 'the island did it,' and throw a video at you lot. Fandom did it, it's not my fault, no harm, no foul. Instead I stayed up half the night - without coffee so help me - on a night I might've otherwise spent tossing around pretending that I'm not an insomniac. Sometimes it isn't your fault, but you have to knuckle down and do something about it anyway. This week, surprising nobody, I want you all to discuss the blame game, talk about the damage that might be caused when somebody prioritizes 'whose fault is this,' over 'how can I fix it?' As always, feel free to use examples from real life, whether you blamed someone else and it ended poorly, or someone blamed you, or somebody you know. 'I don't have to deal with this, it wasn't my fault' is often nice and easy to hold on to, but, unfortunately, that's not how the world works.//

[Open!]

Re: OOC!

[identity profile] fly-so-serious.livejournal.com 2014-02-07 02:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Maybe you haven't looked at a package of Planters lately -- or maybe they only do it on this side of the St. Lawrence, where the crazies live -- but they do have a "contains nuts" warning on them.

I've even seen cans of nuts that say "Warning: MAY contain nuts".

Re: OOC!

[identity profile] notmysupervisor.livejournal.com 2014-02-07 02:57 pm (UTC)(link)
My Mr. Coffee portable mug, which I bought at a store for the express purpose of transporting my coffee, says "WARNING: CONTENTS ARE HOT" on the lid.

Somehow that's even dumber to me than the disposable cups. Like, I KNOW, Mr. Coffee, I presumably put the contents in you myself.

Re: OOC!

[identity profile] fly-so-serious.livejournal.com 2014-02-07 03:05 pm (UTC)(link)
That one, at least has an explanation. AND it's on-topic. You want to talk blame? Normal coffee is served burn-your-tongue hot. McDonald's serves its coffee hot enough to cause severely disfiguring third-degree burns, and 15 years later it's still a joke and we're still blaming the victim. Plus, all coffee cups now carry that warning, so (theoretically) no one can ever sue for unsafely hot coffee again.

Re: OOC!

[identity profile] notmysupervisor.livejournal.com 2014-02-07 03:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, no, I totally get why it's on the disposable cups from McDonald's or whatever. I usually even throw ice cubes in mine because I'm such a baby about it. But I think it's hilarious that the warning is on the cup I bought, that is presumably meant for me to put my own coffee into. Like, who am I going to sue? Myself?

Re: OOC!

[identity profile] fly-so-serious.livejournal.com 2014-02-07 03:17 pm (UTC)(link)
...

Yeah, okay, that's excessive, right there. At that point, I guess it's just to CYA?

Re: OOC!

[identity profile] holyshitsnacks.livejournal.com 2014-02-07 04:18 pm (UTC)(link)
What is insane to me is how I read your comments in Cheryl's voice, whenever you post from her account.

Re: OOC!

[identity profile] notmysupervisor.livejournal.com 2014-02-07 05:55 pm (UTC)(link)
It's especially great because of how well Judy Greer does totally unfounded righteous indignation.

I BOUGHT THIS COFFEE MUG FOR MY COFFEE, SO WHY THE HELL DOES IT WARN ME THAT MY OWN COFFEE MIGHT BE HOT???????