When I’m traveling for my speaking sideline, one of my small pleasures is ordering room service to arrive at the crack of dawn. I love my warm bagel, small pot of green tea, and assorted fruit plate. It starts my day off on the right foot. Sometimes I’ll have a room with a view. I’ll open the drapes and gaze into the forever while carefully spreading the cream cheese on my toasted bagel and waiting for my tea to steep to perfection. I like to alternate between the bagel and the fruit plate, allowing each flavor to surprise my tongue and delight my brain. Each sip of the lightly caffeinated tea nudges me toward a wonderful awakening. It is the perfect start for the day.
Other times, like yesterday, the hotel will take my room service order the night before, crumple it up and toss it under a plate warmer. (Just guessing.) The next morning I’ll grump around hungry and tired for 30 minutes before calling to confirm that they have no plan of ever delivering. Then I’ll raid the mini bar for a $12 Mars bar and a Diet Coke before rushing off to get dressed. Yesterday, my day did not start off right.
This is a necessary context for the rest of the story.
About a week ago an angry woman angrily contacted my syndication company to express her anger. Apparently she had written an angry article about the workplace, and someone had, without her permission, pasted some Dilbert images (covers from my books, probably from Amazon.com) into her writing and distributed it around the Internet. This made the angry woman angry about the alteration of her angry article. Specifically, she was angry at me.
Her article is written in an angry street-language style, angrily berating people who pause by her cubicle to chat and ask her where she got her decorations. Here’s an example sentence: “Walk your ass down the hall to the big supply room and get you some things.” I include that quote partly to give you the flavor of the article and partly because she doesn’t understand things like Fair Use in copyrights and it will make her really angry to see it quoted here.
Her angry complaint is that she believes I pasted Dilbert images into her work and distributed it as though it were my own. My syndicate explained that this theory was unlikely and confirmed with me that I had never before seen her work. They let her know. Case closed, right?
The angry women kept calling my syndicate demanding a more satisfying answer. She wanted to hear it from me directly. So I called her from the hotel. I figured it would take ten seconds to sort this out. I would simply explain that it is a common occurrence for people to modify stuff on the Internet and obviously this is what happened.
The angry woman answered the phone. She accused me of being up to no good. She implied that I stole her work. She seemed unwilling to entertain any other possibility. All of this happened in the first five seconds.
Now at this point I have to remind you that I am severely under-bageled. Looking back, I think I was a bit less flexible than I normally would have been. Even so, I could usually shake off being called a thief if the missing item was, for example, a diamond, and I had the motive and opportunity to take it. I would understand how someone might suspect me.
But this was no diamond. My mistake was in pointing that out. I believe my exact quote was “Why would I steal crap?”
Silence.
If I may give you any advice, it would be this: When dealing with an angry woman who writes angry articles, who is angrily accusing you of stealing her angry articles, do not expect her to calm down when you refer to her work as “crap.”
“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?????”
At this point I was committed. I was hungry. And I had just been accused of being a crap-stealer. So I went with it.
“Your writing is crap. Why do you think I would want to associate my work with your crap?”
She retorted, “YOU ARE AN ARROGANT, POMPOUS, JERK!”
I chuckled and hung up. Suddenly I was in a good mood again. But best of all, this angry woman and I had found something we could both agree on. I WAS an arrogant, pompous, jerk. Although in my defense I do a good fairly good job of hiding it unless someone calls me a crap-stealer.
The angry woman contacted my syndication company again, apparently more convinced than ever of my crap-stealing proclivities. She warned of unspecified dire consequences in my future.
To be continued…