Tact

In Thursday morning's meeting, Bob told how he'd taken photos of his new grand daughter in Sydney only to discover that there was no card in his camera. He wasn't blaming anyone or conveying any annoyance... he was just simply telling the story. Yet, somehow the blame got back to the Production department (i.e. Brad and I) since we were last to download photos off Bob's card to the server. Sound fair? Maybe... maybe not.

The thing that really annoyed me was the manner in which the blame was made and magnified. "Seriously, did you get an apology for that? I'd be pretty p***ed off if that happened to me", said Tim to Bob, but indirectly to us "juniors".

I did respond rather quickly and showed I was offended/annoyed by that careless remark. It was something like "Settle down. That's just overacting! Getting 'p***ed off'... that's just silly".

Bob came and whispered to me later that he thought it was a silly remark, and that he couldn't care less. He wasn't intending to make anyone feel guilty.

I chose to try and forget about it, but it had been eating me up and I was still annoyed about it after work and even after a fun game of cricket (where we beat Cleary Boys in the first round of the new comp). So I wrote this tactful email, addressed to all staff.


Hello everyone,

I'd like to think of it as only a minor issue, but to clarify what I think is the correct proceedure for the use of cameras and cards, let me explain what I believe that proceedure should be.

If I am wrong about this, then perhaps we need some formal proceedure or another memo reminding us of what's required. But drawing from commonsense, I would expect the following:

Cameras and Cards
-----------------
Whoever uses a camera should be soley responsible for returning it to where it came from (as was previously stressed by Tim) - this would include batteries and memory cards.

If somebody takes photos then leaves the camera in the Production department for us to save the photos, I believe it is STILL the camera operator's responsibility to collect the camera AND the card and return it to where it belongs.

Perhaps the simplest solution is that everyone is given their own card reader.

Also, I realise Brad and I are young, energetic, and somewhat hansome young men, but I hope we can still be treated the same as the adult staff. :-) Please keep that in the back of your mind next time we're in trouble for something.

Thanks guys,
Brett

I hope the message finally gets through. Panscott is a good place to work - probably the best place I've worked to date. However, this "hey junior" attitude has been present for a long time and it wears through my thick skin at times. Poor old Dave Daly copped it the most of all of us when he was there.