I saw something on TV that made me sheepishly realize I've been expecting far too much in expecting others to answer my e-mails.
You know, I've heard stories about people routinely abandoning people like me who've been laid off and can't land new work. People like me make people like them uncomfortable. On the other hand, I'm old-fashioned enough to find not answering e-mails despicably discourteous; as rude as blowing off a friendly hello in the hall.
But what do I know?
Not much, evidently, according to what I saw on ABC's What Would You Do? last week. The show's producers conducted a hidden-camera test in broad daylight in New Jersey. They had an actor disguised as a homeless man collapse and lie motionless on a busy city sidewalk, to see how long he'd have to lie there before someone at least whipped out a cell phone.
Sure, the empty beer can in the actor's hand might explain why 88 people walked right by as though a fallen man wasn't there. But how about this: The 89th person, a limping African-American woman who later told What Would You Do? she'd been homeless herself on occasion, not only stopped to check on the apparently unconscious man, but stood there begging passersby to please call 9-1-1. She even removed the built-in beer-can turn-off. A total of 26 people ignored her pleas before another compassionate woman deigned to make the call.
What the heck.
But there's more. As a preamble to the foregoing, the show aired surveillance-camera footage of a real-life incident in which a woman fell to the floor and lay motionless for 45 minutes in the waiting room of a New York hospital, ignored not only by everyone else in that waiting room but even by several members of the hospital staff who looked at her and kept going. She died where she lay, mis amigos. Dead right there.
I'm not trying to blow my own horn when I say I know for certain I would have helped both those people lying motionless on the ground; it would not have occurred to me not to.
And on that basis I reckon the fault lies with me for believing others should answer my e-mails.
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This is so true and I think the same way you do. Although sometimes I take forever to respond to an email if I am in a mental funk. As for that show it is appauling to me that no one helped that woman in the hosp. I mean hello, she was in the hosp, wth. As for the homeless man I myself would have prob asked if he was ok and then called 911 but I would be a little frightened to approach him. Once again pops good blog!!
ReplyDeleteI'll blow your horn for you, and also for me, while I'm at it. We (although I do not include myself or you in the "royal we") have become a collective society of discourteous, unresponsive and unaffected individuals. We spend our lives looking for love, but have no love to give...no wonder we don't love ourselves. As for answering emails, we have become so saturated with junk mail, unsolicited responses, and the threat of computer viruses if we answer the wrong email, we hardly dare open (much less respond to) emails from an unknown source. Every day when I get to work, I routinely "delete" anything from anyone I don't know, especially those that are automatically rendered as "Spam" because MY COMPUTER doesn't recognize the sender! My employer blocks pages that have even the slightest suggestion of interaction they wish to prevent. So, it comes as no surprise to me that there are hundreds of employers out there who have missed the boat when it comes to EB and your immense talents as a writer. God, if I only knew how to get to them, I'd email you right away, on the off chance that your computer didn't "spam" me. Great article, and a sad commentary on our compassionless fellow citizens. I'd be willing to bet that if I walked outside right now and laid down in one of the drive-thru lanes, most people would simply back up and go to another lane. Shall I talk about bull-fighting again?
ReplyDeleteI remember being advised to shout "FIRE!" instead of "HELP!" by another such program because no one would respond to calls for help. "FIRE!" might bring someone running to see what's going on, but no guarantee that any assistance will be given, sadly.
ReplyDeleteLet this be a placeholder for the comment that would only lump me into the group of people walking past the guy passed out with a 40 in his hand in the middle of the sidewalk...
ReplyDeleteBut what if it was only a "24"? (It was.)
ReplyDeleteIf it was only a 24 then I might feel bad for a second that his panhandling efforts did not afford him a 40 that day.
ReplyDeleteIt is a sad commentary on our society that amidst all the discussion of governental help to poor needy and even sometimes middle class people that we gave forgotten the basic principles of humanity. Such as helping someone right in front of our eyes especially when little to no effort would be required. Sad...
ReplyDelete