Accountability

I am now coming near the year mark since my last post. Hopefully that has stopped any who might actually check this blog. If not, I shall have to wait even longer before my next post.

A few months ago I encountered a situation at work that frustrated me. Actually, it was a series of situations all revolving around the same elements, the coffee pots. Well, it was pots before these incidents, but it is now singular. Because someone decided to throw one of the coffee makers away. Because they said it leaked.

The problem is that it didn't leak. Not at all. It was oddly designed, which lead to much spilled water, but that was because of surface tension, not a cracked pot. I knew this because I had spent many mornings using this coffee pot, and understood that the water spilled when I poured too fast, but otherwise it was fine. At that time I said nothing, and assumed that I had missed something. It was two weeks later that I began to think I was right.

I was heading back from taking a phone call when I passed through the kitchen. I smelled a fresh pot of that addicting nectar and went to grab my cup. I headed over to the coffee maker and immediately saw there was a situation brewing. The pot was full, but the machine was still brewing. Someone had decided that twelve cups was not enough, and they decided to try for 24. I quickly ran over and turned it off, and then grabbed the pot and dumped the overfill into the sink. In the process I spilled a little on the counter and floor, so I started cleaning up. This was when my co-workers started wandering back to the kitchen. They saw me cleaning up spilled coffee and immediately started discussing how this pot leaked, and the maker leaked, and all these other problems that didn't exist.

I stopped cleaning so I could get a better look at them. Surely they were kidding. None of them had seen what happened, and no one asked me what happened. They just immediately started blaming innocent things. I suppose I should be happy they didn't start blaming me, but still, these people had sacrificed a coffee pot before, and now we were down to one. I did not want to risk losing that coffee maker. I began telling them what happened, as much as I knew. I explained that someone must have put too much water in it, or how someone had neglected to empty the pot before making another batch.

They ignored this, instead discussing all the ways the machine had wronged them and their family in the past. I stood there, mouth agape, as they all ignored me and jumped to their own conclusions. Why exactly would you want to listen to the one person who saw what had happened? At this point I immediately thought back to the other coffee maker, who I now realized had most likely been wrongly sacrificed because of the incompetence of others.

I eventually stopped trying to explain to the people continuing to gather in the kitchen what had happened. It wasn't going to matter what I said, these people had found their witch, and they were going to let nothing stop them from burning it.

I know this isn't the best example of accountability, or lack there of, but it does show one situation where people are just looking for something or someone else to blame. No longer will people shoulder the blame and results of their mistakes, instead we look for scape goats. A woman spills her coffee and sues the people that sold it to her. A student fails a class and sues the school for not teaching him.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to contact someone about suing my computer. It has kept me up far too late, and now I am not going to get enough sleep.