Hit and Run

So for about a month or so I've been workin' at my friend’s shop (he’s a coach builder) helping him out. I do about 2 days a week with him, I work in the front and basically do any work that’s overflow. It’s actually an interesting place to be. It gives me the extra work hours that many of us need these days, as well as allowing me to meet the very quirky characters that come through on a pretty regular basis and, every now and then, we get a real piece-of-work that we have to deal with…

About 2 weeks ago, toward the end of the workday, a delivery truck comes to drop off a shipment to the company that rents next door. As the delivery tuck was pulling out of the driveway, the truck clips the side of my car and destroys my side-view mirror. Rather than stopping, the truck just continues out of the driveway towards a dreary, cloudy sunset. Very upset, I thought that I’d just have to deal with repairing the car myself. Good thing I’m spending 2 days a week at a car shop. Then I find out that, even with my friends help, I’m still looking at $400+ in parts, paint and labour.

Fast-forward to the following Friday. I’m sitting at my desk doing some work when one of the shop-guys comes running into the office. “Mr. Zach, the man who has hit your car is doing a delivery right now. Go get him!”

So I went out to the loading dock to confront the man who hit and ran on me, but suffice to say that the driver of the truck was refusing to admit that he was the one that caused the damage to my car. So, knowing that I am now going to have to report it to the police if I am to get any justice whatsoever, I go outside with a digital camera to get some shots of his plates, the company name on the side of the truck and the driver himself. While I am taking the pictures, the man gets extremely hostile and even threatens to hit me! I'm about to snap a shot when he lunges at me with a closed fist and my picture gets ruined. However, as you can all see, I did end up capturing quite an image.

I won’t bore you with too many of the details afterward, but, suffice to say that the entire cost of repair to my car is now being taken care of . . .
And yes, I am happy that I’m not on the hook for the bill, but what really gets me going is the steps that I had to take to get someone to do the right thing.

The moral of the story? I’d say that there are two:

1 – It pays to be persistent with people. The world will not balance itself out. Sometimes you have to take initiative and balance out the cosmos yourself.

2 – People don’t like taking responsibility. We should, as a people, really make an effort to not wrong others while we go about our lives. But when we do, we should take steps to make sure to set right that which we made wrong.

If we're only good to ourselves then we will end up alone, in need and without help.

Virtual Friends, Online Etiquette and Moving On

OK, so what’s the etiquette for dealing with online friends? I mean, we all have friends on Facebook that are only there so that when people view our profile it shows that we have more than 6 friends. C’mon, let’s be realistic, I have over 200 friends on Facebook and I probably talk online to about 20 of them and only deal with about 6 of them in real life. So, what is one supposed to do when you get a Facebook notification that it’s a Facebook friend’s birthday? The birthday of a person who you have not seen or spoken to since 1996. Even when we added each other as friends no messages were exchanged . . . nothing.

The whole online friend thing is a little odd to me. I mean, it’s great that we are able to stay in touch so easily with the people that we care about and vice versa but, y’know, if you haven’t seen someone since grade 6, chances are that you no longer have the same things in common that you once did. I mean, once you stopped going to school together and you finished your “Transformers rule!” phase, you two probably have nothing really to say to each other.

People seem to have issues with relationships being finite. I, on the other hand, have no problem with the fact that there were people in grade school who I, at the time, considered very dear friends who I no longer talk to. The fact that I no longer stay in touch with them doesn’t de-value the time that I did have with them. A friend doesn’t have to remain constant for him/her to be important. Some of my most valued friends are people who I no longer am in touch with. And all this technology doesn’t really make me want to reach out and re-connect with any of them.

But now I’m in a weird predicament. Because of Facebook I have a bunch of “friends” that I rarely/never talk to. Originally, I was not going to accept a friend request from anyone whom I was not currently friends with . . . but that can’t work. There’s an etiquette about this. If I don’t accept someone as a friend and then a real friend of mine finds out, then I can get into trouble. Hecklers, who are supposed to be my friends, saying things like, “it’s just Facebook. Accept him as your friend and just don’t talk to him if you don’t want to.” That’s what I hear all the time. But my question is: If I’m not going to talk to him (and he probably won’t talk to me) why have him as a friend at all? If this were the real world we would have nothing to do with each other. But for some reason the rules in cyber space are different.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this . . . in fact, I can extend this all the way into the blog world (which I’ve already done previously). People who I don’t talk to on the phone follow me on twitter and my blog . . . what’s up with that? I MEAN . . . * ahem * Thanks to all of you for your interest in what I write!!!!!

So that’s about it for me. I was hoping to work through this a little bit so I could: a) discover why we, as 21st century internet saavy people, care more about our virtual statistics more than what’s happening to the real us and the ones we love in the real world as well as, b) decide whether or not to wish a happy birthday to a person I haven’t seen since summer camp, 1996.

So, I'm supposed to write about what now?

Angel on the left:

Okay, so I'm thinking that maybe a blog is a good idea. I can use it to rant, vent, share and just keep people in the loop. Or, I can just use it to bitch about everything and everyone that bothers me . . .

Devil on the right:

Okay, so I'm thinking that maybe a blog is a bad idea. If I use it to rant, vent, share and keep people in the loop I may end up just bitching about everything and everyone that bothers me . . .

Alright! Welcome to my blog. I'm just trying it on for now. Not sure that it fits right. But we will see. Still trying to think of a subject for my first entry . . .

Why do people think their opinions are so important that they need their own blog to share their thoughts with a world of people that are so selfish and self-interested that the only reason that they read your blog is to see if their name is in it? Now how many other blogs have said that same thing? Exactly! Tonnes. So, I guess you'll never read anything new here . . .

. . . . but maybe you'll see your name.

Hope you all enjoy this! More coming soon.