I came across this rather interesting video on YouTube the other day so thought I would write a commentary on this issue. The video is the voice of a woman who called 911 because the Burger King she was at kept messing up her order. Please take a moment to watch the video then read my commentary following the video.
My first response to this video was anger. First and foremost the woman clearly has a misguided idea as to the proper use of 911 being for emergencies only, not for silly things like not getting the right burger. She also as a warped sense of what powers police officers have. She shows no indication of social responsibility by tying up emergency services that may be needed for an actual, life or death emergency while costing taxpayers for her foolish phone call. In my opinion she should be charged for misuse of the 911 emergency system. Clearly her actions call into question her sanity or do they?
Our society has become one of me first with demanding instant gratification. We want what we want and we want it the right way right now! We cannot tolerate the fact that humans can and do make mistakes. In addition to this outside pressures such as lack of time, parenting issues, financial issues, the recent recession, job insecurity and in general life's stresses have made some people so stressed that they will fly off at the handle over the tiniest problem. Now this lady ordered her burger only to have it come back wrong 4 times so obviously this was frustrating. Add to the picture she had her kids in the car likely tired, irritable and hungry. I highly double they were being quiet little angels over the delay either. Meanwhile she has likely worked an 8 hour day or more, gone to support her kids at soccer, still has to drive home and housework when she get there. All she wants is the burger she ordered from incompetent employees who don't seem to understand that. Can you blame the emplyees though? They are underpaid, likely students who have never been taught a work ethic so basically don't care about customers in the first place. Given all of these factors even if she were charged a good lawyer would get her off on temporary insanity or perhaps drive-through rage and a better lawyer would get her a financial settlement to pay for her inconvenience and tramatic experience.
Who are the real losers in this whole situation? The kids sitting in that car are the real losers! They have just witnessed how to throw a first class huffy fit if you don't get what you want and how to abuse emergency services if the huffy fit doesn't work. They will take that lesson to repeat elsewhere. They are also losers in that they are being fed fast food high in sodium, sugar, fat, calories and poor in nutrition. Had the mother thought ahead she could have had a healthy casserole in the oven then drove directly home from the soccer game to enjoy a homemade meal without the stress, giving both her and her kids the opportunity to destress. It would have been cheaper, less time consuming and a better lesson for her kids to learn.
Garden Gnome
©2006-2010
You know I have to say I think there is also some fault with the emergency operator who didn't spell out clearly that this is not an emergency issue, and then continued holding a conversation about the situation for 2 more minutes. We have exactly the same misuse of the emergency service calls in the UK.
ReplyDeleteYour right! I wonder if she kept her on the line long enough to access whether she was a threat to others though? You never know any more whether someone is going to totally lose it over a trivial matter.
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