WTF? on page L2 of today's Globe and Mail

[da]

Unfortunately, this column isn't on the Globe and Mail website. It's a new column called "Damage Control, A Weekly Guide to Surviving Social Scrapes" by David Eddie.


To: letters@globeandmail.com, damage@globeandmail.com

Concerning the Damage Control column in Tuesday's Life section ("The fix for your BlackBerry blunder? Lie"). When someone is caught emailing during a funeral, the only response with "a touch of class" is to acknowledge the stupidity of what he did, grovel for forgiveness in writing (not "an apology card" but a letter), accept whatever might come of the apology including likely no response at all, and in any case to move on, chastened and hopefully wiser but with one's integrity intact.

Advising that he should lie and spin to regain his dignity- what sort of dignity is that exactly? Knowing for the rest of his life that he lied to a friend whose father had just died? Daring his grieving friend to call him a liar? Setting himself up to eventually be discovered in the lie?

Aside from the many reasons why this is terrible advice for anyone, I'm most disappointed that the Globe and Mail saw fit to publish this kind of "Damage Control." I really did think you held to a higher standard than that.

/s



[original article copied into comments]

Comments

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

Ew. Ew.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

...and I didn't mention the article on the facing page, which says: teenagers lie, it's endemic and nothing is to be done about it. (As an example of why that's inevitable, they used the hypothetical kid telling their parent they were going to a friend's house to smoke pot and have sex. So of course the kid will lie rather than have the parent blow up. Inevitable. And so it's more important for the parent to deal with the forbidden behaviours and ignore the lying.)

That bad advice was more ambiguous. I thought about writing about the juxtoposition of articles, but it became too long.

They didn't print my letter this morning. They printed another letter that mentioned both and said a bit about moral vacuums.

I'm afraid our paper's turning into a tabloid.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

That bad advice is, at least, traditional. Telling people they should lie to their friends about why they were assholes at funerals instead of taking the "I'm a bastard" lumps, that's kind of novel.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Yes. I'm still amazed they printed it.

[sulle-stelle.livejournal.com]

You have GOT to be kidding me.

You're kidding, right? This is a joke, right?.....


Right?..... =:-0

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

No joke.

'cuz I'm a big 'ol geek, I ran it through my scanner's OCR.

---

A WEEKLY GUIDE TO SURVIVING SOCIAL SCRAPES)) FUNERAL FAUX PAS
The fix for your BlackBerry blunder? Lie
DAVID EDDIE
DAMAGE CONTROL
damage@globeandmail.com
......
THE QUESTION
A college friend's father passed away the other week and, though I never really knew the old guy, I went to the funeral to support my schoolmate and her family.
I was in the midst of a pretty crazy business deal that day
and ended up having to leave my BlackBerry on. Unfortunately, someone from the deceased's family spotted me furiously texting my assistant and then later at the wake accused me of being self-absorbed and disrespectful. I left the reception with my face burning and haven't spoken to anyone from the family since.
We sealed the business deal, but I'm pretty sure I've lost my friend - and my dignity - for good. Beyond sending more flowers and an apology card, is there anything I can do to bury this incident with a touch of class?

THE ANSWER
This column is called Damage Control and my job, as I see it, is to help you tiptoe away from the wreckage of your latest screw-up with a minimum of damage to your reputation. So let me start with a tip on how to spin this particular mess. Then maybe we can move on to a couple of larger issues.
Unfortunately, you're forcing me to do something I don't really like to do: counsel you to lie. But I see very little choice in this situation. The family may say they forgive you, but this is the type of thing that follows a person around.
Therefore, my advice is this:
Make up a life-or-death scenario that required urgent information from you but not your presence.
You could tell her that your Uncle Reggie from Minnesota, who is staying at your house, accidentally ingested a peanut, to which he is morbidly aRergic, and you were frantically texting your sister-in-law the location of his EpiPen, which you had put in the medicine cabinet when you were cleaning the bathroom the night before (as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said of architecture, when it comes to lies, "God is in the details," so pile them on - the quirkier the better).
Tell her you realize now you should've left the room but were so freaked out you forgot.
If you sell it, she'll buy it, hopefully. if not - well, you gave it a shot. Then go into your apology routine, and good luck to you.
In the meantime, use this incident to learn. Sometimes God sends us valuable lessons in the form of zingers, reversals, comeuppances and public humiliations that help zap us out of our ruts. Sounds like that is what's happening here.
Remember, some day it's going to be you in that casket, and you're going to want people to remember you as a
mensch, not some schmendrick
with a BlackBerry at a funeral.
And while you're thinking about that, consider this: Almost all business stems from social interaction. I don't know where you live, but where I live word gets around fast and something like this could hurt you professionally. Compromising your good name by closing a business deal at a funeral is a short-term strategy. ))

David Eddie writes for TV magazines and the silver screen, and has published two novels, Chump Change and Housebroken: Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad. He lives in Toronto with his wife and three sons.