Napping employee has me rethinking my thoughts about privacy

If you read this blog regularly (thank you), you know I am a big believer in privacy and generally not a fan of the many ways in which technology has infiltrated our public and private lives. I have also said that I am immensly thankful that cell phones, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, etc. were not around when I was a misbehaving teen and a reckless 20-something. Some of my more impulsive antics would have provided great fodder for today's online rubberneckers and I (and everyone else of my generation) really dodged a bullet there.


My general position is that, just because you have the ability to snap a photo of someone and send it around the world, doesn't mean that it's appropriate. But, something happened here in Toronto recently that has me rethinking my views on our right to privacy. If you live here, you already know that yesterday, commuters on our subway system witnessed, photographed and shared a photo of a fare collector in full slumber (reclining, eyes closed, mouth open) as he was "working". As I write this, the photo has gone viral and news is spreading around the world.


The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is investigating the situation and my normal response would be to echo their request that we not "jump to conclusions" but this time I'm going to break my own rules and declare this unacceptable. This is not the place to rant about my belief that unions breed complacency but, as an entrepreneur who has steered my company through the worst recession in my lifetime with zero government help or support, during which time I had to bear the injustice of a garbage workers' strike based on ridiculous, outdated demands, I have had enough!


The taxpayers of this city have put up with too much for too long and, all things considered, have been very loyal, gracious and patient with the TTC in the face of ongoing fare hikes with no improvement in service. From an etiquette point of view, I have to say that I have always been disappointed with the level of service of TTC fare collectors. Even though I always greet them pleasantly, most never even raise their heads when I try to buy a ticket and many manage to conduct the entire transaction without lifting their eyes from their newspaper. I walk away feeling thoroughly invisible.


As a result, this group has failed to build any goodwill with me and I have difficulty digging deep to find any compassion for this particular employee. So, this time around I'm going to go against my instincts and, I say to those who would share this photo virally, post away! Maybe it will finally shake things up.

How to Screw Up A Vaccination Campaign in 12 Easy Steps

After months of conjecture and baffling discourse, H1N1 panic has gripped the North American population. And our governments have started rolling out an official innoculation campaign. To say that this campaign, and the clinics that kickstarted it, got off to a bumpy start is a gross understatement. Unmitigated disaster would be a more appropriate way to describe the chaos that characterized the first few days of Toronto's vaccination efforts, brought to you by the good people at Toronto Public Health. Note: I'm referring here to the management who organized the clinics, not the nurses and security guards who have been run off their feet and by all accounts, remained cheerful in the face of adversity.

As a PR agency, we produce an average of ten to twelve events per year. These range from intimate dinners for 20 to public events where we expect hundreds. Although every event is unique, the steps involved in pulling off a seemingly flawless event (there's no such thing as a truly flawless one) are the same and involve a lot of people working behind the scenes against a detailed critical path to ensure success. And, although granted, we're not trying to vaccinate a paranoid public, we face our share of setbacks - caterers who lose our paperwork, hotels which double-book our rooms, guest speakers who cancel at the last minute...well you get the idea. That's what contingency planning is for.

In observing how Toronto Public Health has executed the H1N1 vaccination campaign, it appears that management threw out, or decided to ignore, the most basic principles of event planning. If you're interested in organizing a disastrous event, following this twelve-step process will put you on the path to catastrophe.

1. Take your time - Even if you are briefed about the need for a potential event eight months ahead of time, make sure you don't do anything until a week or two before event day. That's just wasted time. If possible, right smack in the middle of the critical period when you need to confirm dates and product availabilities, go on strike for oh, six or seven weeks. During this time, make it illegal for anyone to work on the project.

2. Broaden your guest list - Don't make a list of your preferred guests. Rather, invite everyone on the planet. Take out a series of full-page advertisements in local newspapers to make sure that everyone knows they're invited to attend. For good measure, throw in some warnings about the dire consequences of not showing up.

3. Order limited quantities of everything - Even though you've done your best to ensure everyone in town will attend your event, make the assumption the vast majority will not show up. Order only enough product for a fraction of your guests. Same goes for things that will make the event go smoothly - chairs, pens, clipboards and food. If anyone brings up the words "contingency planning" remove them from the committee.

4. Confirm nothing in advance - You had one phone call months ago with your vaccine supplier and they said you would get a million doses. Now that your event is upon you, there's no need to call and double-check that it's still a go. People always do what they say they're going to do right?

5. Don't hire professionals - Sure, you work in a city with countless experienced event planners but you don't need to hire one of those people to help you. I mean, how hard can it be to organize a few thousand pregnant women, sickly citizens and fractious, bored toddlers.

6. Take the road less travelled - Sit down as a group and think about all the ways you could simplify your campaign roll-out. Ask yourself questions like: Is there any place in our society where large groups of children congregate during the day? or, If only there was a qualified health professional who pregnant women saw on a monthly basis. Decide that there's no such thing and the only way is for you to set up your own clinics.

8. Deliver mixed messages - At the start of your event, divide event staff into ten even groups. Give each group a completely different set of answers to key questions. For example: tell some nurses that kids five and under are eligible for the vaccination and tell others that it's only kids six months to four. Sit back and watch as the hilarity ensues.

9. Don't put any kind of system in place - Despite what centuries of history have taught us about what happens when you get large groups of people together, assume that only those who are eligible will show up, they will self-organize, form an orderly line, and not attempt to hold places in line for other family members. Ignore even the most rudimentary methods of crowd control - a roll of drink tickets or a series of staunchons. You won't need them.

10. Trim your guest list at the last minute - Two days before your event, decide that 90 per cent of the people you have invited are no longer welcome. Make no apologies and offer no assurances about when they will be reinvited.

11. Make sure it's convenient - When planning the event, think about what would be the most convenient time and place for you to hold it. Base this decision on things like the hours you normally like to work, any plans you might have for the evening. Resist the urge to consider things like the convenience of your guests. We don't want to give them too much control.

12. Deny, deny, deny - When the angry mob turns on you, deny that your complete inability to plan had anything to do with the disaster. Wherever possible, blame your suppliers, staff, and other stakeholders.

An Etiquette Lesson for Organized Labour

A while ago I blogged here about recession etiquette, the main point of which was the need for those who had fared well during the economic downturn to be more aware of the feelings of those who have fallen victim to these times. I know that everyone has felt the pinch in some way or another but let's face it, losing your job is infinitely more stressful than realizing that your house has decreased in value, especially if you weren't planning to sell anyway.

Here in Toronto, we have just experienced a 35-day strike by 30,000 municipal employees which resulted in the complete shut-down of everything from garbage pick-up to city-operated daycares and daycamps. Among other things, the striking workers, many of whom enjoy 18 sick days per year, challenged the city's decision to eliminate a contract provision which enabled them to bank unused sick time to be paid when they left or retired.

In my career, I have belonged to a public sector union. It was mandatory when I was an employee with the Government of Ontario. In the end, it just wasn't for me. I chafed against the notion of paying someone to speak on my behalf and I was surrounded by too many colleagues who had become complacent in their approach to work in the knowledge that the union would "protect" them. I left for more meritorious pastures. On the other hand, I am a beneficiary of organized labour. My husband belongs to a union, a very respectable one, whose leadership seems to focus on relevant issues like making the workplace more family-friendly.
As the manufacturing heart of Canada, Ontario has been hit especially hard by the recession. In the private sector, those who have not already lost their jobs, are facing paycuts, shortened workweeks, the removal of benefits and reduced opportunity for advancement. Those of us who own our own businesses, have had to deal with cancelled orders, slashed budgets and chasing down payments, all while we continue to employ people and inject money into the struggling economy. While none of us is pleased with this turn of events, we are bound together by a realization that life, as we know it, has changed and will never be the same again. Things that we relied upon, including signed contracts, are subject to change. Most importantly, agreements that were made two years ago are being revisited due to pressures beyond everyone's control. At the end of the day, we're happy to be taking home a paycheque.
It is for that reason that I think it was so difficult for Torontonians to get behind the striking workers, all of whom are well compensated and enjoy generous benefits already. In fact, one wonders if government employees even need the protection of organized labour. The thousands of unemployed would gladly have taken the city workers's jobs, even with a pay cut and citizens were at a loss to understand how the union leaders could suggest that provisions that were negotiated during an economic boom, should somehow be guaranteed through a downturn, and beyond. Private sector workers who have accepted paycuts in lieu of losing their jobs certainly didn't have that kind of expectation. And if they did, there was nowhere for them to air their grievances.


Emily Post charaterized etiquette as a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. This certainly wasn't in evidence during the strike as Torontonians had to haul their own garbage to temporary dumps and then deal with irate union members when they arrived. Parents who had booked and paid for summer programs for their children had to scramble to find alternative arrangements. And sadly, the language, on both sides of the argument was deplorable. In a Toronto Star article entitled, Is Mark Ferguson the most hated man in Toronto, the embattled union leader tells of e-mails he has received saying thinks like, "I hate you with all my heart" and "you are a terrorist". Certainly not an appropriate way of dealing with anger. His retort, that "you might redirect your anger towards the banks, financiers and Wall Street rather than cannibalizing gains made by other working people" is equally inappropriate when those "other working people" are paid by taxpayers.


So, the strike is over and in the next couple of days, we'll find out just how much our Mayor gave on our behalf. While I'm relieved that the thousands of tonnes of garbage currently stockpiled in our city parks will be removed, I wonder if we will still be "putting up with garbage" for years to come.

I look forward to your polite responses.