Canton on Emergency Management

9 Ways to Improve Your Presentation: Know when to stop talking!

 

 

9 Ways to Improve Your Presentation

Know when to stop talking

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Why Do We Still Kill The Messenger?

There was an interesting article in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle about one of the survivors of the recent fire that destroyed the town of Paradise. The gentleman in question was born and raised in Paradise and built a home there. That home was destroyed in the Camp Fire last November. But unlike the other disaster survivors, this man receives no sympathy from his neighbors and has had to endure threats and vandalism. The reason? He works for Pacific Gas and Electric.

PG&E has had image problems since the San Bruno pipeline explosion in 2010 that resulted in a conviction for obstruction of justice. The company has a reputation for placing profits above safety, a reputation that was reinforced by the company being found responsible for major fires in California in both 2017 and 2018. The company faces multiple civil suits from those fires and consideration is being given to charging the company with manslaughter and possibly even murder.

But are the employees working on recovery culpable in any way? The individual that the Chronicle article highlighted is both a native of Paradise and himself a disaster survivor. The work he is engaged in is community restoration. Yet he and other workers have had their vehicles vandalized, been verbally assaulted, and had garbage thrown at them. They are abused not for who they are or what they are doing but because they are a visible and accessible representative of a powerful company that the abuser has no real power to influence.

This an extreme case, to be sure, but how often are we rude to people who are trying to help us simply because they are the only representative of an institution accessible to us? Mind you, I have limited patience with rudeness and inefficiency, but I try not to open a conversation with a customer service representative with a verbal assault. I remind myself first that I want their help and secondly that they, in most cases, don’t have the power to make any real decisions. In other words, they’re not to blame for their company’s errors; they’re trying to help fix the problem.

Executing a messenger who brought bad news simply because they represented the sender went out of style years ago. Next time you’re angry with a company, write the chairman or president; don’t beat up on the person who’s only trying to make things better.