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Assessing Blame

Apr 9th 2010Business & Life

I smiled this morning as I waited for my car to be brought up by the valet at the hotel.  The airport shuttle pulled up, picked up a person (it was 5:00 in the morning), got him nestled in amongst a shuttle load of other customers, waited to see if anyone else came out, and then pulled out to head to the airport which was no more than 5 minutes away.  Immediately after he pulled out, a man ran out of the hotel, looked at me and asked, “Was that the airport shuttle?”  I confirmed that it was, and he disgustedly said, “Well they could have announced it.”

Several things caused me to smile:

(1) the 5:00 shuttle came right at 5:00 and left at about 5:03

(2) the shuttle parked right in front of the door, turned on his indoor lights, onloaded another passenger, and took down airlines of those in the shuttle

(3) on the outside of the shuttle were these words, “AIRPORT SHUTTLE” in clear enough sight that I could see them standing right by the lobby door

Even with all these clear indicators that this was indeed the airport shuttle and it was running on schedule, this particular gentleman felt a need to point the finger at someone else rather than accept the fact that he had been distracted (he was sitting at the business center computer printing what may have been his boarding pass), wasn’t looking, certainly wasn’t listening, and definitely was at fault.

Unfortunately, life is all about assessing blame for far to many of us.  Even when things run perfectly on schedule and folks provide very effective service, if we are impacted in any way by our own tardiness or lack of focus, it obviously had to be someone else’s fault.

As I sit in the airport now waiting on my flight, I’m still smiling. 

I hope I don’t miss my flight.

If so, I may have to blame it on that guy at the hotel who got me thinking and then in my thinking I got distracted, lost track of time, missed the boarding window, and had to wait 3 hours for the next flight!

Life indeed is all about assessing blame.

And it certainly can’t ever be our own fault!

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