Disqus - Latest Comments for itwillallbefine

Re: just for the record

itwillallbefine — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 02:35:26 -0000

You can't please all of the people all of the time.
You can't please some of the people some of the time.
And some people have nothing better to do than pick holes in someone else, because their lives are so dull and pointless.

*hug*

Personally, yeah, I think you took the time to fake all these pictures from Kenya, and all the children's pictures, and all your pictures, and all the other pictures and that you are really a 6foot tall man. With a beard. And you keep snakes. And tarantulas. And you live in a shed. By a lake. In.... ummm..... Belgium. And you're called.... Clive. And live on your own with tiny Pomerainian dogs called Harmony, Rhapsody and Melody.

Or, in all the time I spent making that up I could have just said *hug* hope you're having a good time and thanks for all the pictures.

*HUGS* to your children.

Re: Game over!!!!

itwillallbefine — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:58:55 -0000

Praising along side.

*hug*

Re: I'm so lonesome I could cry.

itwillallbefine — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:25:31 -0000

*hug* I know this feeling. OR rather, I know a feeling like this feeling. It sucks. And no matter how much you can tell yourself you aren't alone, that you are surrounded by people who love you and so on, it's just the way you feel.

I went to Fireworks tonight, without Rich. Thousands of people there. A big group of us as friends with our children. And then when the fireworks started, I could have just cried and cried for the loneliness I felt. But I got through it, just like you will.

*hug* praying.

Re: digging deeper

itwillallbefine — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:32:51 -0000

Praying honey. *HUG* Big prayers. Since Rich died there have been so many times when I just wanted to collapse, and the reality was that I had to stand tall, and do whatever it was. *HUG* You can do this too.

Re: Understanding The Power Of Social Media

itwillallbefine — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:28:39 -0000

As a passenger on the tube on an irregular basis, I have to say it's the business men who have indulged a little too much at the liquid lunch and knocked off early on a Friday that are more a problem for me. Tube staff have at best been helpful and kind, and at worst grumpy, but never rude, foulmouthed or lecherous, something I have experienced from the suited brigade.

Blowing up the issue does allow public scrutiny, I cannot deny you that Mr McSquirter, but doing with human sacrifice is, I feel, more of a publicity stunt than anything else.

There is only one beneficiary from all this. It isn't the public, it isn't TFL, and it isn't Ian, or even the gentleman involved. It's Jonathan MacDonald's ego.

How inflating that further will aid the common man, I have no idea. Perhaps he could enlighten us?

Re: Ian From The London Underground Vs An Elderly Man

itwillallbefine — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:08:20 -0000

At no point have I said that this was an acceptable way to treat customers, and I fully admit I could not work on the Underground. But this witch hunt is no way to treat another human being who simply shouted at someone. If he was some kind of mass murderer, child rapist, fine, out him, ruin his life. He's not.

I'm a teacher. I love my job. I wouldn't leave my kids for all the tea in China, but after being criticised by a parent for the fact their child can't read when we have already diagnosed severe dyslexia, provided 1-1 tuition, and the parent has said "I can't be bothered to hear her read, it's so frustrating," or parents who prefer to dope the child on Ritalin rather than deal with mild ADD with behaviour help, (and yes, some children *need* it, not most.) or parents who say "The reason my child isn't doing her home work is because you have spastics in your class and they don't have to do theirs!" then I could get absolutely fuming with them.

But my home life is stable, my mental state is calm, and on a bad day I just refer them to the Headteacher. We don't know the situation Ian was in, we don't know what's going on, we do know he attempted to refer the "gentleman" to the police, and he refused to go, like a naughty child who knew he'd done wrong - after all, if this gent had a real issue surely he'd have wanted to go himself? Where is he in all of this?

Essentially for me, this comes down to Jonathan choosing to ignore the system for his own self-promotion. This isn't acceptable, and the way Underground staff get treated isn't acceptable - I've reported passengers to BTP for their behaviour towards staff and praised staff for the way they've handled it, and would continue to do so.

This is opportunistic bullying at it's worst.

Re: Understanding The Power Of Social Media

itwillallbefine — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:55:15 -0000

And the arrogance of working in the media ripples through this entire situation. Jonathan has created this situation, deliberately, and then sat back and is trying to claim "I didn't know this would happen." However, his own 8 step plan to how you can repeat this exercise proves objective, intent, and thought process.

Ian lost his temper and was bang out of order, and should have been dealt with through the system.

Jonathan decided what he was going to do, in a calculated way, and he deliberately chose a course of action that would promote him, choosing to throw another person, his family, children, whatever, to the wolves on the way. If it was incidental that that happened, then Jonathan is at best thoughtless. However, he clearly says that his actions were done deliberately, posing to powerful twitterers, choosing to send the link to the newspapers, and so on. The only conclusion from that has to be that he doesn't mind who he steps on to promote himself, and that in fact, he is the biggest and most selfish bully in all of this.

Well done indeed Mr Macdonald. Oh hurrah for you.

Re: Ian From The London Underground Vs An Elderly Man

itwillallbefine — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:42:06 -0000

Because if he was deaf he wouldn't have heard Ian was swearing in the first place, if he wasn't used to the underground he just had to listen to the instructions (Stand clear of the doors is pretty clear, as is removing your arm from a closing door, and let's face it, those doors are not the fastest in the world!) and he clearly understood English or he wouldn't have been able to apparently be so reasonable.

I do take your point that there are people who get abused every day - soldiers and airmen by the anti-war lot, doctors, teachers, bin-men, and so on. And in every situation there are people who snap and retaliate - often those who their colleagues would thought to have been the last person to go. A good example is the teacher that lost his temper with a horrendously behaved child and hospitalised him. He didn't mean to, he didn't start his day intending to do it, it just happened. It shouldn't have happened, but like Ian, it did.

This is nothing like the same scale, and has been blown up out of all proportion by Jonathan, in an apparent deliberate act of self-promotion.

Saying "Just get another job" is an easy thing to type, and a hard thing to do in the current climate. Unless one is a hermit (and that is a poorly paid job at best with very little work life balance) then one has to interact with the public. In any job there will be someone who doesn't like what you do, and has a pop at you. This could happen in any job.

That not-so-elderly gent was out of order to be over the line - it's a safety issue. Had Ian have left him there, not said anything, and he'd been pushed accidentally under a train (and yes, it has happened) then the same baying mob would be after Ian for dereliction of duty. I am not saying that Ian's method of delivery was good, it wasn't at all, and there is a definite case for taking him through disciplinary for it, but Jonathan chose to deny the route of justice in favour of making some kind of social point (he says) or a blatant act of self promotion (I believe)

It's a moot point now anyway. What is done, by both parties, is done. Justice and basic procedure has been replaced by the rule of mob. Lord of the Flies is on the way....

Re: Ian From The London Underground Vs An Elderly Man

itwillallbefine — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:17:44 -0000

The "throwing him under a train" line, presented by Jonathan and therefore the press as a threat to the passenger, was no such thing, as it was not directed to the passenger as he had already got on the train.

Not a relevance failure Ms Bumsqueeze (although typing that made me laugh!) merely an observation.

(different computer logs me in as a different person! Interesting, tho' I am still me lol!)

Re: Understanding The Power Of Social Media

itwillallbefine — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 04:25:18 -0000

I think abuse is a better term, and that there has been abuse on both sides, both of the passenger by the staff member, and by Jonathan in the way that he has chosen to handle this. In a way, his abuse can be seen as more calculated, (and by your terms, bullying) than the staff member who was clearly having a flash point moment.

In retrospect, would it not have been better to go through the proper channels, holding this kind of thing in reserve, rather than having it seen as self promotion, and therefore devaluing the actual facts?

This kind of witch hunt, which is all this is degenerating into being, with Jonathan himself saying he hopes the man loses his job, which in this climate is a veritable burning at the stake with huge financial and familial implications.

If this is what social media trials are like, then justice would appear to be over.

And in answer to your final point, in several of the replies to commentators, he has used crude language. Surely not as a flashpoint response? :-)

Re: Understanding The Power Of Social Media

itwillallbefine — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 03:00:13 -0000

Something I was just thinking about whilst pottering about was the repeated use of the word "bullying". It's been used a lot by this blogger (who claims to have been bullied himself at school), and in the comments.

In my classroom there are one off incidents, as there are in any school. They are dealt with swiftly and firmly, with parents brought in as soon as they can make time to get to school. Bullying, however, is something that happens over a protracted period of time, to the same person, by the same person or people. To claim that Ian is bullying this apparently faultless gentleman (and has he come forward in all this? I don't know.) is therefore unkind, and incorrect. However if Jonathan's definition of bullying as he presents it here, as single incidents of harassment, is correct, then therefore he is bullying Ian now, and encouraging others to do so, and claiming the moral highground for doing so. Do two wrongs make it right?

By taking this straight to the public domain, not going through the proper channels, which exist, and do work well, Jonathan has denied Ian any right to reply, and is subjecting him to a trial by media, which, by nature of the "evidence" (only starts half way through the situation, thus leaving us only Jonathan's account of events up to that point) is biased.

Chockster's accusation of bullying (presumably painting the blogger as the victim) fits neatly into this idea that, should anyone be looking for a fair trial for Ian, or should they disagree with the presentation of events, or the way that they were publicised and sensationalised, that these people are also bullying.

I feel this is not "bullying", but rather young people with a victim culture who would claim the responsibility of others for their own actions.