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Best Laid Plans

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Today’s guest post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden.

Hey, Mr. C!

I think I found my career, finally.

I know I’ve said that about some other things, like being a planet hunter, and watching things blow up. But this time I think I really mean it because the job I have in mind is a real one that people actually do every day, and I already have some experience with it.

I want to be a Forensic Electrical Engineer.

In case you’re wondering what that is, I didn’t know either. Not until I saw this article about why the lights went out at the Super Bowl last Sunday. It turns out the blackout was caused by this very expensive electrical relay that was put in to keep a blackout from happening.

I think that is so cool! Mostly because it is totally ironic.

And now people are arguing about whose fault it was, really. The power company says it wasn’t their fault, and the New Orleans city leaders are kind of hoping it wasn’t the fault of anybody in Louisiana. They’re hoping it can be blamed on the company that made the relay. But the company that made the relay says their relay worked fine – it was the people who messed up.

So there!

And here’s the best part – Forensic Electrical Engineers are going to be really important in deciding who to blame. That’s why I’d like to be one – you get to be the finger pointer instead of having the finger pointed at you all the time, and believe me, I’ve been on the receiving end a lot! So having an important job in the blame placing industry would be great.

I found this job description online – the most important part is highlighted – by me!

“… forensic electrical engineers have investigated the causes of events such as the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant and the widespread blackouts across the Northeastern United States and Canada in the 1960s and in 2003. They also work on smaller scale incidents such as an individual being electrocuted by her toaster. They are usually called in when death or injury has occurred, or a large sum of money is at stake.”

Imagine that – I’d get to cast blame on other people in cases where there’s a dead person, or tons of money, or both! I know I’d be great at this because I’m really good at being exasperated at things other people have done, so I could work on my tut-tutting, my eye rolling and my heavy sighing, especially when one person has really, really screwed up.

Please tell me this is a great idea!

That way, if it turns out that I don’t like it or am not very good at it, I can always say you pushed me into the field!

Your Pal,
Bubby

I told Bubby there is a lot of math involved in being an electrical engineer, and that the people he would be dumping blame on would have their own lawyers with sharp criticisms of himself and his methods. When it is your job to find responsibility in cases where there has been a death or “a lot of money is at stake,” you are not allowed to pass through unscathed, and if your testimony winds up costing someone money, a counter-suit is possible. Blame placing has its own risks.

I suggested it might actually be safer for him to look for a dull career in the Blowing Up Things Industry.

When you place blame on someone other than yourself, how’s your accuracy?

63 thoughts on “Best Laid Plans”

  1. I could have answered this earlier but my computer got hacked by some mysterious private message for energy drinks I’d like to get my hands on that guy I changed my password so hopefully it can’t forward to everyone I know and everyone that they know. The 6 steps to god theory. Theqholeworld hetsanad for energy drinks but it comes with the plague nice ad campaign dude. The Grammys are getting hard to watch cowboys and bad haircuts seemed to have the center stage along with a couple people I heard of like prince and black keys (I don’t think of black keys when I look at those guys)
    I think bubby may not have noticed that he only listed 4 dates in the last 20 years, you may as well open a lemonade stand selling it for 1 million dollars a glass. You may not sell much but if you only sell a glass or two a year you’re all set. If it doesn’t sell blame Lucy from peanuts cartoon strip. You can go into psychiatry.

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    1. My computer was hacked as well. Got that same message from three different people late yesterday afternoon, and before I knew it, had hundreds, literally, of messages from contacts who had received the same message from me. Royal pain in the butt.

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      2. There’s no contemporary area of life more frustrating or inhumane than computers, IMO. A few weeks ago, Yahoo mail went down all over the country and since my daughter, whose business depends upon a working email account, couldn’t recall her “mystery question” from the original set-up of the Yahoo account, she was effectively knocked off Yahoo mail for a whole month. She spent hours each week waiting for a human to resolve the problem. By the time her email was working again, she had over 500 emails, some of which were from unhappy boarders.

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  2. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    When I am emotional and angry, I lapse into inaccurate blaming. This is, of course, my mother’s fault, because she did this, too, setting a poor example of personal responsibility.

    Any spelling errors in the post are tim’s fault–he started it with his initial post of the day.
    The bad roads for my morning commute are former Gov. Pawlenty’s fault due to his budget shuffling ways having affected snow clearance over the past 12 years.
    Anything else for which I need to assign blame goes to Dick Cheney or the now resigned ex-Pope Bennie, since they are aging and out of power, leaving without the power to smite me.

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  3. A skill I never mastered is blaming others for my screwups. I never got the hang of that. I can be counted upon to blame myself each time something goes wacky, and my aim is true. I will add that I am note responsible for the pope pheeping out. Maybe he didn’t log as many hours on the treadmill as he shoulda. Or maybe he opened an attachment in mail from tim and got cooties.

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  4. I have had many problems with my TV/Internet provider, but their email service has been good. It caught the first spam email from Dale. It sent it on with a warning label that it was probably spam. So I did not open it. It stopped two others after that in my spam file. So I did not get bit.
    The Topic: I don’t like failing, so my first response is to blame others. But I soon accept responsibility, if I do think I deserve it, often blaming myself too much, such as I do right now about some large picture things.

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    1. I opened one spam one yesterday before figuring it out – so … am I now more vulnerable and should do something?

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    2. Clyde, I think you can probably blame German and/or Lutheran upbringing for that tendency to blame yourself too much, and if I am wrong about that, you can always blame me for telling you to blame them. I’m sure it is really my fault anyway.

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      1. Funny. ‘Cept I was raised atheist. Can’t say my parents were much into self-blame, much the opposite. Although my father could not be please.

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        1. I don’t think you learn to blame yourself by parental example, I’d say quite the opposite.

          At Luther, we always felt the Catholics had the best part of things, as they could do wrong and then go to confessional and be done with it. As Lutherans, we felt that if we did something, knowing it was wrong, well, why on earth did we do it in the first place? Not really absolution, that.

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  5. Well, ain’t that a shame. You’re to blame.

    You made me cry, when you said goodbye
    Ain’t that a shame
    My tears fell like rain
    Ain’t that a shame
    You’re the one to blame

    You broke my heart, when you said we’re apart
    Ain’t that a shame
    My tears fell like rain
    Ain’t that a shame
    You’re the one to blame

    Oh well, goodbye although I cry
    Ain’t that a shame
    My tears fell like rain
    Ain’t that a shame
    You’re the one to blame

    You made me cry when you said goodbye
    Ain’t that a shame
    My tears fell like rain
    Ain’t that a shame
    You’re the one to blame

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  6. I suspect that I blame others more than I realize – though mostly I try to just own up to my mistakes. Heck, I’ll even accept blame from others (sometimes in jest, sometimes not). Actually, what I’m better at is not blaming others, but other non-human circumstances (think sun spots, only 24 hours in a day, that sort of thing). I could be wrong on that last one, though. I’m good at being wrong.

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  7. There is a curious jujitsu in assuming blame. Back, many years ago, when I was a middle manager and had a half dozen people under my supervision, I made it a practice, whenever upper management was looking to assign blame to someone in my group, to step in and take it upon myself. Technically, as supervisor, it was my fault, but that wasn’t the emotionally satisfying blame that management was seeking. They knew that my assumption of fault was more honorable than actual. Nevertheless, at that point, the blame was all used up and couldn’t be assigned again.

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        1. Oooh, been there, done that. I worked in an organization for years where there was a vicious “us versus them” distinction in place. Since I could not in conscience take the “us” side, I was despised as someone who sided with outsiders . . . “them.” My boss hated me for that.

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        2. I tended to be criticized in reviews for “fraternizing” excessively with the staff. As if there were a class system in place and I was flaunting it. Funny, I had assumed that everyone was an essential component of the organization and, as such, deserved to be treated that way. If they weren’t essential, they had no reason to be there at all.

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        3. One salutary effect that goes with willingly assuming responsibility (blame) is that you tend not to get bullied. You might get fired, but not bullied. Taking on blame sends the signal that you are strong and confident enough to take it, whereas shifting blame implies you are so insecure and fragile that you need to appear perfect at all times.

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        4. Oh, you’re talking pure truth, bro. Anyone in an organization will typically only get a few occasions to define his courage. If, on the first occasion you are tested, you stand up for your support staff, you can hardly do no wrong after that. Conversely, as you say, if you shift blame to others you might never be forgiven for your weakness. I wonder if they teach these things in MBA classes?

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    2. This thread is making me queasy — corporate America is sometimes a really gross place. What does it say about us if we’ve dug a comfortable niche in it? Ick.

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      1. One thing it says is that, unlike Steve and I, you are still employable by corporate America. Aside from that, if your niche is comfortable, you are probably not being asked to do anything that offends your core values.

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        2. Unfortunately, the people most attracted to supervisory positions are the very same people who should never be allowed to supervise anyone.

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        4. So much truth from Bill on a Monday! Many supervisors are people who work their way up the ladder because they absolutely can’t abide being supervised. They are happy when they climb to a position of power, but they are rarely wise managers. It is also common for sociopaths to do what it takes to get to positions where others can’t judge them but they can judge others.

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        5. I agree about people becoming supervisors to avoid having someone over them as a supervisor. I know one person who became a supervisor because the ones that had had perviously been hired as her supervisor were bad. The person I know that did that is actually a very good supervisor in my opinion. She doesn’t want all the problems that come with being a supervisor and wouldn’t have chosen to be one if she had been sure that the heads of the agency wouldn’t hire a bad supervisor as they have done numerous times in the past.

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  8. Good morning. I would like to avoid getting involved in blaming people. I can’t avoid assigning blame when I have really been hurt by something some one did. It takes me way too much time to stop blaming a person who did something hurtful. I am getting better at letting go my negative feelings toward people who have given me a bad time.

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  9. its not me who did it
    its not me i say
    didnt do it back then
    didnt do it today

    oh i know you think different
    but you are just wrong’
    been wrong since you started
    been wrong all day long

    you are up the wrong tree bud
    chasing the wrong scent
    doing all the wrong things
    wrong direction you went

    i couldnt have wouldnt have
    didnt dont never did
    if anyone says different
    hes lying to you kid

    it could have been anyone
    but it just wasnt me
    i wont take the blame
    for the stuff cast at me.

    if your looking for answers
    i can help you with that
    i can pull them up like
    little bunnies from a hat

    you want to know who
    its the thing that you want
    well take your lead steps
    from immanuel kant

    It always remains a scandal of philosophy and universal human reason that the existence of things outside us … should have to be assumed merely on faith, and that if it occurs to anyone to doubt it, we should be unable to answer him with a satisfactory proof.[3]

    so there no you have it
    its not only just me
    immanual baby
    in pods hang we peas

    sastisfactory proof
    is all i require
    if you dont hve it now
    let your efforts retire

    just leave me alone
    i dont wnat no stinkin blame
    just go try to pin it
    on old whats his name

    hes used to being kicked around
    like a stone in the fog
    and if you cant find him
    theres always my dog

    he takes blame very well

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  10. Daughter is a master of blame, but only for things that involve me. This morning, for example, she complained that I needed to go downstairs and feed the cats earlier in the morning (both are considered her cats, I might add), because “Ginger won’t let me get out of bed until you feed him. “

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  11. Morning all — I think we should blame WP for the viral emails. I got them from a couple of baboons — knew right away something was screwy, as I knew that neither PJ nor Dale would ever write a subject line like “how r u” and “hell oo”. But I didn’t get any from non-baboons!

    The apple didn’t fall far from the tree where the blame game is assigned. My mother is very matter-of-fact, fish or cut bait kind of person. So I learned at the master’s knee that blaming is a waste of time and you just have to get on with whatever is at hand. I’m also like Bill — if something happens on a program of mine, I tend to step in when the blaming starts to get heavy. And like Bill’s management, other people don’t tend to like this.

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  13. 20 years ago we had a 35-year-old man student teaching in biology to get licensed to sub just to fill some time and get out among people. He worked about 20 days a year and was paid something like $2500 a hour. He was a forensic fossil nematode expert.

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      1. Oil companies, analyzing drill core samples.
        He was single and had a very modest life style. Most of it was in investments. I wonder where he is today. He moved to Duluth to spend two years getting the degree and because he thought it would be fun to live there awhile. He thought he would try the St. Cloud area for awhile. He was an interesting man. A good teacher, too. Good with the kids.

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    1. I read this morning about the latest Carnival Cruise ship debacle, then noticed that another Carnival ship encountered the same mishap three years ago! No danger of going down, but not having running water, enough food, or working toilets while stranded on a floating island with three thousand other people could just be the definition of HELL?! I just may have to end my two-cruise old relationship with this company.

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  15. Very interesting comments today Baboons!

    The trouble with blaming others, as Bubby has discovered, is what do you do when that party refuses to accept the blame? A round of finger pointing is useless.

    OT: son and friends got tattoos over the weekend. So when RH and Mike Pengra played ‘Damn Tattoo’ this morning I sent the boys the link. Karma baby. Mike must have been reading my email.

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  16. I came back to here and looked at the title of today’s blog and started laughing. I have spent the bulk of the day on the phone dealing with my aunt Mabel’s funeral in Florida. The very fine woman who took care of her wanted to have her cremated but Mabel had laid out full plans to be buried in a casket with her sister, identical casket and headstone to her sister. So I have spent the day making sure that Mabel’s best Laid Plans were followed.
    Still laughing.

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  17. Many years ago, and with the help of an emerging philosophy about human behavior, I virtually dumped the whole concept of “blame”. The thing I most detest about politics is the blame-game (although I have great difficulty absolving the GOP!!). When something happens that upsets me, I first analyze my own culpability or contribution to an unpleasant outcome. Once that’s done, I imagine the other person or person’s behavior as being a product of their own history AND what I’ve taught them over time in terms of how to treat me. I get mad at the situation sometimes, but ultimately figure out just how it couldn’t have happened any other way (or it would have). I see blaming as nothing other than simply beating up on someone (sometimes myself) because I personally dislike what’s happening.

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    1. I agree, Cb, that the concept of blame is not all that useful, unless you’re a litigious sort, in which case it becomes very useful.

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  18. I think I’ve pointed the finger of blame at others when it was too painful for me to look honestly in the mirror. That lack of honesty with myself has caused more pain than accepting responsibility in the first place. I’m practicing accepting responsibility for what happens in my life while being careful not to cause any situations which would merit blame.

    How about this for casting blame?
    http://thepoliticalenvironment.blogspot.com/2013/02/walker-says-jobs-record-weak-economy.html

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    1. I agree, Krista. Ultimately I think you gain the courage to face whatever the situation is once you no longer blame your parents, your spouse, your employer, your children, or whomever you assign blame for your predicament to. Sometimes that’s a long and painful process, and some people never get there, but I believe that until you do, you have essentially given up control and responsibility for your own life.

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  19. Lotta wisdom here today. Wayne Dyer wrote a book (can’t remember name – anyone?) about two useless human traits – worry and guilt. The gist of it was that there is no positive outcome from either of these, and they’re a colossal waste of people time and energy. I’d like to add blame to the mix. Especially self-blame, which is often WAY overdone and out of proportion to the event that caused it.

    Let’s see, what was the question?….

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