Old NFO posted this social media message on MeWe yesterday. It concerns the winter storms that were hitting California at that time. I had to laugh while reading it, because the deputy sheriff or administrative assistant who wrote it was clearly very, very tired of dealing with idiots members of the public who were taking unnecessary risks.
That's something I could never understand while volunteering with emergency services in South Africa. Why do people defy the evidence of their own eyes, and put themselves in danger by ignoring the conditions around them and official warnings? They may not make it, and even if they do, they put other people's lives at risk to rescue them. It's thoughtless, self-centered and stupid.
Unfortunately, it also seems to be human nature . . .
Peter
12 comments:
Is the problem that people do stupid stuff, or that the rest of us aren't given a choice as to whether to help extract them from their own bad choices?
I spent 21 years in the Coast Guard. How many times my brothers in arms pondered why we spent so much time and money rescuing people who CLEARLY deserved the Darwin Award...
Of course, it doesn't help when the MSM sensationalized every weather event for "climate change" creds. Every weather system is IMPENDING DOOOOOM! After a while people just stop believing the forecasts... and then get buried or washed downstream by the truth...
Because their boss says he will fire them for not coming in.
Any boss that pulls that deserves a flurry of throat punches the next time you see them. With brass knuckles, even.
Absolutely totally justified.
Stupid should hurt.
Sometimes, that's your job.
Own it.
"A man who picks a cat up by the tail learns something which he can learn in no other way." - Mark Twain
Is violence your default Aesop?
Clearly as your *Still* employed as a Nurse in California I'd have to assume YOU'VE never spoke of such violence to YOUR Employer despite your own Raconteur Blog COVID rants about WHAT YOU'D DO IF...
OH, yeah, you'd sue them not give them a flurry of brass knuckled throat punches, eh?
It's much easier to get a new job WITHOUT a police report of your "Terrorist Threatening" on file for HR of the new job to purview.
Stupid SHOULD HURT.
BTW, Mono County at its low point sits at 5000', and the main ways out North, South, and West are I-395 and SR108, which last cuts west over the Sierras at 8000-9000', past the USMC Mountain Warfare Training Ctr. (the mere memory of which sends shivers through anyone who did the Winter Mountain Leader's Course), and also sits as far as anyone plows the road in non-blizzard conditions, 80 crow-fly miles and 500' higher in elevation than Donner Pass, in an area far more barren and inhospitable than that in which the Donner Party resorted to cannibalism for survival.
The only way out of that county during a blizzard is snowmobile (or snowshoes) to the east, until you hit the high (and dry) desert roads of Nevada.
But there's only about 10K residents in the whole county, generally wise to whiteout snow conditions, so anyone they lose will likely be some dumbbell flatlander tourist, best left to feed the bears and coyotes over a cold winter.
The sheriff's office there hasn't lost anyone in the line of duty in 108 years and counting, and comprises only 23 members. Which explains the sense of humor and decided lack of Political Correctness in their press release.
Why do they ignore it? I think because they don't understand it. There are always fools who believe they can do anything, but how many people aren't educated enough, or have the experience, to understand something as basic as traction, and why you lose it in snow and ice? How many of us actually had such instruction in driver's ed? I did, but I'm like, you know, old, man. Why do we see idiots walking through rushing flood waters? Because people have no understanding of the mass and sheer energy a single cubic foot of moving water possesses. You don't a physics course for that. I blame the schools in part. We rightly criticize them for emphasizing woke cultural BS at the expense of the three Rs, but they long ago stopped teaching practical daily living knowledge. Hell, I'm old enough to have been taught how to identify and avoid blasting caps in grade school.
This gave me flashbacks. Used to be a LE dispatcher, and it was a constant thing in icy/snowy weather, someone try to make you tell them that THIS magic route was fine!
The fact that the whole damn area was iced, or blowing and packed snow, just didn't matter.
One day a guy kept asking the one I was working with "How's I35 north? How about I35 south? What about I40 west?" He'd have gotten to I40 east if they hadn't asked "Just where are you trying to go?"
No, Michael, the real answer is far too simple for you to work out on your own:
I don't work for bosses that stupid.
@tkdkerry
Part of it might be a variation of the Disney effect re: wild animals are cute, cuddly and sapinet.
Look at some of the commercials for, say, pickup trucks and SUVs: fording rivers, perched on the top of mountains, etc. Combine that internalized fantasy with the Kung Fu Panda effect, and you get people who think they can handle the worst of what nature can offer, so long as they have their four-wheel-drive wonder-whatever.
In some situations, they might even be right. If they're lucky, they might get enough of a bad scare to improve their judgment next time around.
"No, Michael, the real answer is far too simple for you to work out on your own:
I don't work for bosses that stupid."
LOL Aesop, then you must change jobs a lot then. Middle Managment bosses are always on the go and stupid ones seem to breed like rabbits. Maybe because they kiss the pinky ring of stupid senior leadership so rampant in Hospital leadership.
Still as usual you deflect from the question. IS Violence your default?
Luke 6:45
A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil; for of the abundance of his heart his mouth speaketh.
Proverbs 10:19
19When words are many, sin is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise.
"The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"
Violence a default, of course not.
Just when my life or limb are at stake.
That would include any idiot who mistakenly thought my employment agreement (outside of military service, which isn't under discussion) entitled him (or her) to put my life at risk for their own convenience, or by sheer stupidity.
https://i.imgur.com/tsuhzAk.png
Most people get that without having it laid out for them like a grade school lesson.
Other people are astonished to hear of such a thing.
So you'd be...which of those?
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