Who Takes the Blame? Who’s Responsible? Nobody

A cancerous mindset has our country in its death grip, and I see absolutely no way of reversing this onerous trend. It is none other than the total shirking of responsibility.
Several recent incidents brought this to my attention, all more sad than comic. From the grassroots, it seems, all the way to the top, the way out is simply to cop the phrase, “It’s not my responsibility,” “You can’t blame me, I just work here,” and “They are only human.”
Anyone who has ever attempted, at great length, to rectify an unjust electric bill, may begin to warm to this column.
Example 1: At my wife’s place of employment, an electric meter was turned off. That should not be difficult to understand. Off means no power, gone, kaput, out, no more.
Then, mysteriously, after the meter was turned off, a bill came for that same meter. When she called about this unjust bill, the answering individual told her, such things just could not happen, and that “someone” has to authorize a meter to be turned on.
My wife, who works for the board of directors, asked, “Who authorized it?” The answer, “Oh, we have no record of that, but someone had to authorize it.” Protestations and pleas for a name went nowhere. She was told that the bill was due, case closed. Pay it or else.
Valuing her time over continued time on the phone, the bill was paid.
Then, a bill for another meter, which is normally a minimal amount, came in at an astronomical figure. Once again, she called.
After a prolonged period on the phone with the utility, she was told that the figure was right, although my wife knew there was no way it could be correct.
Further questioning netted the response, “Well, the meter readers are only human.” The only “help” the person could offer was to arrange payments for the bill.
My wife told her about the obvious error, and demanded that a utility representative meet with the board of directors to explain the incident. The answer, “Oh, we don’t do that.”
Do we see a pattern developing here? No one is willing to step up and take responsibility for an obvious mistake. Worse, as my spouse opined, “You can’t get mad at anybody.”
I told her I would absolutely demand to personally speak with the company president and see if there was nothing that could be done to explain the meter and billing errors, and why no one in the company would be available to speak to the board about the problem.
Example 2: One of my co-workers is moving. He made what he thought would be a simple telephone call to the cable and Internet service provider to terminate service where he lives and start service anew at the future location on a particular date.
The poor guy was on the phone for about three hours, being switched from this one to that one, put on hold, and then shifted around again.
In the end, a particular supervisor told him there was no way the arrangements could be made prior to the day of the move. He protested that he did not want to double pay for service and was basically told. “Sorry, Charlie! That’s the way it is.”
Like my wife, he was steaming mad, but where could he vent that displeasure? Nowhere. It was nobody’s fault. Those were the rules, too bad.
Had it been me, I believe I would have simply pulled the plug and gone entirely wireless, and who could have blamed him or me for so doing?
Example 3: I read that a long-trusted name in baby carriages was recalling 1.5 million of its carriages because some children had fingers amputated on those supposedly safe devices.
As with recalls of everything from automobiles to headache pills, don’t you wonder how anything of such a monumental proportion could escape the eyes of designers, managers, company officials and even sales people for years? Did no one ever see the danger of those carriages before over 1 million were sold, and many children cut or worse on the things?
No one has to take responsibility for such dangerous things. Cloaked in anonymity, firms make untold millions of dollars, and company executives live off the fat of the land, and, seemingly, “To hell with the public.”
Occasionally, one of those execs will literally be caught with their pants down and have to take the fall for the company, but you and I know such occurrences are rare as white tires. Japanese executives take a much more serious attitude toward such things, and have been known to commit hari-kari when the company faces shame over what they did. That is the custom of their country. I don’t advocate it, but that is what the nation’s code of honor dictates.
So, dear reader, you, too, must have a story to add to this column. There must be frustrations with car repairs, home renovations gone awry, products that don’t work as they are supposed to, or people who just won’t admit they or their company were wrong.
I fear it’s an irreversible trail upon which we are traveling. No one is at fault even when the worst things happen.
How refreshing it would be to get a call from the company president to say HE or SHE would personally take care of the matter in order to keep a customer satisfied. That would be too much to expect from a society that lacks backbone to admit a fault and work to correct it.