-
Please support me in the 2010 Ride to Conquer Cancer - last year we were able to raise $6.9 million for the Alberta Cancer Foundation - hopefully we can raise even more in 2010! -
Blog under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
Mar
1
(2007)
On Monday, I attended a memorial for a family member that passed away recently (part of the reason I was in a bit of a funk during Northern Voice). It was the culmination of a long illness, but was still a shock.
At the memorial, a friend of hers stood up to say some words. Not a bad speech, and a nice gesture. They had met while working to pass some legislation to protect self employed individuals in the province. I talked with him after the service, at the reception upstairs. And then he did something that really unsettled me. He handed me his card. He is a politician, working he crowd for support. I saw him handing out cards around the room, making sure to talk to everyone at every table.
At the time, it didn't bother me too much. He was a friend of the deceased, trying to make contact with other friends and family members.
But, the more I think about it, the more incensed I get. Dude. You're handing out BUSINESS CARDS at a MEMORIAL??? I don't care if you're the freaking widower. That's just plain and simple NOT COOL. I don't care if you're a politician, a salesman, or a dotcom billionaire. Using a family memorial to work the crowd to gather support (no matter how subtly done) is a huge faux pas in my book.
I was asked by several people during the reception about the "guy handing out cards" – people were surprised that anyone would have the gall to do that. I'm stunned. Even though I could never bring myself to vote Progressive Conservative in the next provincial election, I will not be able to vote Liberal either. If this is the type of person selected by the Liberal party of Alberta, it isn't a good sign.
Not cool, Len. Not cool.
I do often feel that we’re all losing all of our sense of decency in order to win… Without a social contract, everything situation is up, relationships are only as good as what they can get you… This type of zero sum thinking really is saddening but it’s an often expressed truth of our reality these days. I feel bad when I find that I have made a faux pas like that, without even realizing it until alter on.
That is definitely tacky. I have on ocassion given someone my card at a funeral. This may be someone I have just met and plan to get together with at a later date. It is definitely not for the purpose of garnering business, or VOTES! It is simply easier than pulling out pen and searching for paper to write down the same information that is already on my cards.
Hmmmm… Okay, I won’t say anything about the real world. It ended in the seventies.
Deepest condolences on your loss.
Sami, I find it hard to believe that you’d ever do anything tacky like this. Decency should trump networking every time. Karma is a powerful thing. And this guy is running completely against the Cluetrain – this wasn’t a conversation, it was a veiled sales pitch.
Right. Which is why I didn’t name names or link to his site. No need to blow away a career over what is hopefully a single silly mistake. In a perfect world, there would be no parties and no rhetoric. We’re almost at a place where we can effectively represent ourselves without having to designate an individual to somehow appropriately stand in for tens of thousands of people because they can’t all physically be in the capitol building. The problem with the current system is that it forces those with political aspirations to gather the most votes, at any cost. Decency is probably the first thing to go.
Of course, now someone will pipe in and tell me that “in the real world” blahdeblahblah. The real world is dysfunctional. We can actually fix that. Anything less than that is a cop out.
Imagine by Lennon starts playing…
Amen, brother.
sweet! we’ve already got a soundtrack!
Well I find it hard to believe as well
and I would never do anything that boneheaded, but we all have our moments of stupidity (that we regret) and I do think once this guy realizes it, he’ll regret it… But I am so cynical in general about the direction in which society and public dealing in general is going, it doesn’t surprise me all that much. At the University whenever we have SU elections, we see a group of people acting a certain way to get the votes and once it’s over, you never hear from them again and in general that’s the way politics seems to be headed. Recently, there was a debate about the issue with the Supreme Court saying that the detention certificates were against the Charter, and then when you go and hear the debate, you don’t get any real debate about the merits of the argument and what it means to our society… Instead, it’s just the same drivel party lines and meaningless rhetoric from where each party stands… Such discourse is not only meaningless, but philosophically it’s almost narcissistic (from the standpoint of the party) in that you’re simply concerned about the party line and not about the actual issue and its implications… and that’s all you’re getting from this politician, just plain flat narcissism at the most inopportune time and the sad thing is that he doesn’t even realize it.
Some people just have the guts to do that. They do not care about others. The most important thing is what they gain from you.
I’ve met many politicians like that. And most of the time, I just walk away. Even if he offered a handshake, I would just ignore it.
If he can’t respect the dead, he got no time respecting me or you.