Friday, June 09, 2006
Losers Litigate
I can't name names.
I had lunch with half a dozen people I respect immensely, one I don't and one I don't know. I called for a vote about this new blog. "Should I name names?"
A couple of people got excited and started saying Yes, yes! Mavericks like me, evidently. The officiator of the group (every gathering has an officiator, whether or not official) said, "Not unless you want to get your @#$%^ sued." (To repeat his exact words would be to name a part of my body I'd rather not draw attention to. So, if I shan't name names, I shan't name anything I prefer to leave unnamed. Fair enough?)
It seems the issue is litigation, specifically a litigious society. My friend, one of the people I respect, but probably less than I should considering the breadth of his knowledge, said if I should err just a sliver, just a hair, I could be hauled before the magistrate for slander.
Soon tales of being jailed for alleged, but unproven, postal fraud ziz-zagged across the table.
Not to be left behind, someone who knew of a jailing based on irritating the revenuers (tax people) tossed in a story. Chaos ensued. It was a soccer match of story-besting with the revenuers as aggressors and all us “good people” trying to clear the stadium. In other words, it was posited, if you say something about them they don't like, they can bring your business (income, reputation) to the dungeon, or worse.
After a few heated moments, I called for another vote, and to a person colleagues agreed I should not name names. My example of being accosted by an anxious salesperson as I part-way entered a store, still blinded by the change in light-dark from outside to in, reported as flatly as if I'd said "I took the dog for a walk this morning," still drew the "No, you might get some detail wrong. You cannot name names," vote.
Someone suggested you would all be more eager readers if I kept the blog positive.
I disagree.
People want the dirt. It makes us laugh, smile, or at least feel superior. “What a dork!” Satisfaction of a fleeting, stress-alleviating sort.
Pollyanna is still marketing watershed. Children eight and under are ushered, not always of their own freewill, toward media that is all positive. (When they're at their friends' homes, they go to the dark side and play games and watch video full of exploding body parts.) Adults abhor Pollyanna tactics. "There must be something good here”? Puh-leaze!
Adults have all had one too many broken legs and are wasting away from internal bleeding or whatever caused the sunshiny Hayley Mills to nearly die from falling to the ground from her second story window. So there you have it: either way, Pollyanna is bad. As a marketing tactic, it is hated by all upon whom it is foisted (while admired by the foisters).
But since my purpose for this blog is to reveal what people do that promotes or demotes their businesses, so we can all learn to be better marketers, it isn't germane that I call businesses by name.
Admittedly, it would bring me a half-pence of satisfaction to blast the buggers! I still believe the bloody public would be far more interested in who failed and who succeeded...like the food inpection reports in the local paper. "Oh, you mean at ____________ restaurant, employees were found with dirty hands and arms?" (How do the inspectors measure arm dirt?)
So, I shan't name names. And if perchance I provide enough detail that you think you’ve figured out which stores or businesses I'm complaining about, I must assure you that all details supplied are entirely fabricated...if not by me then by the purveyor of the antics. Any resemblance to persons living or dead could be imaginary.
So sue me if you can't take a joke, or the truth as the case may be.
In my mind, people who sue because their comeuppance has come up are losers. You just proved my point!
I had lunch with half a dozen people I respect immensely, one I don't and one I don't know. I called for a vote about this new blog. "Should I name names?"
A couple of people got excited and started saying Yes, yes! Mavericks like me, evidently. The officiator of the group (every gathering has an officiator, whether or not official) said, "Not unless you want to get your @#$%^ sued." (To repeat his exact words would be to name a part of my body I'd rather not draw attention to. So, if I shan't name names, I shan't name anything I prefer to leave unnamed. Fair enough?)
It seems the issue is litigation, specifically a litigious society. My friend, one of the people I respect, but probably less than I should considering the breadth of his knowledge, said if I should err just a sliver, just a hair, I could be hauled before the magistrate for slander.
Soon tales of being jailed for alleged, but unproven, postal fraud ziz-zagged across the table.
Not to be left behind, someone who knew of a jailing based on irritating the revenuers (tax people) tossed in a story. Chaos ensued. It was a soccer match of story-besting with the revenuers as aggressors and all us “good people” trying to clear the stadium. In other words, it was posited, if you say something about them they don't like, they can bring your business (income, reputation) to the dungeon, or worse.
After a few heated moments, I called for another vote, and to a person colleagues agreed I should not name names. My example of being accosted by an anxious salesperson as I part-way entered a store, still blinded by the change in light-dark from outside to in, reported as flatly as if I'd said "I took the dog for a walk this morning," still drew the "No, you might get some detail wrong. You cannot name names," vote.
Someone suggested you would all be more eager readers if I kept the blog positive.
I disagree.
People want the dirt. It makes us laugh, smile, or at least feel superior. “What a dork!” Satisfaction of a fleeting, stress-alleviating sort.
Pollyanna is still marketing watershed. Children eight and under are ushered, not always of their own freewill, toward media that is all positive. (When they're at their friends' homes, they go to the dark side and play games and watch video full of exploding body parts.) Adults abhor Pollyanna tactics. "There must be something good here”? Puh-leaze!
Adults have all had one too many broken legs and are wasting away from internal bleeding or whatever caused the sunshiny Hayley Mills to nearly die from falling to the ground from her second story window. So there you have it: either way, Pollyanna is bad. As a marketing tactic, it is hated by all upon whom it is foisted (while admired by the foisters).
But since my purpose for this blog is to reveal what people do that promotes or demotes their businesses, so we can all learn to be better marketers, it isn't germane that I call businesses by name.
Admittedly, it would bring me a half-pence of satisfaction to blast the buggers! I still believe the bloody public would be far more interested in who failed and who succeeded...like the food inpection reports in the local paper. "Oh, you mean at ____________ restaurant, employees were found with dirty hands and arms?" (How do the inspectors measure arm dirt?)
So, I shan't name names. And if perchance I provide enough detail that you think you’ve figured out which stores or businesses I'm complaining about, I must assure you that all details supplied are entirely fabricated...if not by me then by the purveyor of the antics. Any resemblance to persons living or dead could be imaginary.
So sue me if you can't take a joke, or the truth as the case may be.
In my mind, people who sue because their comeuppance has come up are losers. You just proved my point!
