If there’s one thing I have absolutely no time for, it’s folks who have never done a job criticizing how someone else is doing that job.
This is not a new phenomenon. People have been criticizing others since the dawn of time. But social media has made everyone supposed experts on all kinds of subjects, and it’s now become part of our culture as a whole.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people post comments under a news item, explaining what should have happened. Comments like “That police officer needs to be reprimanded” or “Surely they could have disarmed him without hurting him” are commonplace.
I shake my head when I read these, because I know these commenters have never been in those situations. I chuckle as I think to myself “Yeah, sure buddy. If it were you that some drug-crazed person was coming at with a knife, you’d probably pee your pants. But please tell us all how the police officer in this case should have reacted instead.”
Almost daily, I see comments about teachers not teaching the way they should, according to these commenters. I close my eyes and try to put myself in a teacher's position. The last 12 months have resembled nothing close to the previous decades. They are already tasked with trying to educate our kids during a pandemic. Now, folks want to hold teachers accountable for what protocols they think should or shouldn’t be enforced. They’re teachers, folks. Think about the challenges you experience with a few of your own kids. Now multiply that by 10, 20 or 30 to try and understand how many kids the teachers have to teach.
In the last two months, there’s not been a day I haven’t seen someone comment on how this store or that store should enforce or not enforce mandatory masking rules. Trust me folks, the people working at Walmart, Costco or the local grocery store just want to serve you and send you on your way. They didn’t make the rules. They just do their best to respectfully ask you to follow them. If you truly think they need to do things differently, then you should fill out an application form to work there.
If there is one thing I truly hate about COVID-19, it’s how everyone seems to suddenly know more than actual medical professionals about infectious diseases. They share links from obscure websites that only have one writer and four or five articles, all backing up their point of view. My favourite links are the shared posts where some guy that nobody has ever heard of claims to be a scientist, a virologist or a doctor, but never tells you where they actually studied or where they work. As for the actual confirmed health-care professionals being interviewed or quoted on legitimate news channels or in legitimate periodicals? Well, that’s just “fake news” and propaganda.
The most damaging gift Donald Trump gave to the world was this idea of ‘fake news.’ For more than four years now, it’s become acceptable for people to brand any news story they don’t like with the insulting designation. It can be a direct quote on a video with thousands of witnesses, but if they don’t like the quote, they can simply shrug it off as ‘fake news’. Not only will they dismiss it as factual, they will then follow up by informing everyone what the journalist should have written or how the headline should have read instead.
Don’t knock someone on the job they are doing unless you can actually speak from experience.
