I came back to the office with a splitting headache in spite of the fact I had a great lunch – mutton bryani + a pint of Kilkenny – with a great friend on Friday afternoon. And before I reached the office I had canceled all my ‘Friday lim-jiu sessions’ as I think I want to rest early for the next day’s Haw Par Villa Picnic.
A few minutes after I returned to my desk, my MSN was abuzz with incoming messages about DK’s blog post titled: Are you in the ping.sg “in group”? (The post was a result of a post made here [pic].)
It was clear to me that DK was upset over a particular paragraph in that post. And I could empathise a lot with how he is feeling at this point of time since I was also become pretty upset about a month or so ago over a couple of groundless postings built on top of just one word: shallow.
On looking back at how ‘damage control’ was done over those postings, I could see some similarities.
A comment made during the first incident
can u all pls stop quarreling abt this already?
yes the word ‘shallow’ wasn’t used in any post or twitter, no i didnt create the story, n no im not going to explain anymore right now.
its over. live n let live.
ppl shdnt speculate abt who these ppl were (more than 3) n dont draw ur own conclusions. pls.
kris wrote that post cos he was upset tht i was upset. that is all.
i nvr intended to make a public spectacle of this. in any case, those ppl who think tht the community no longer fits what they r looking for, well, our doors are always open for u if u wanna come back one day.
thats all i have to say, n now i have doubts abt writing my own explanations anymore. i dont want any more eyes on this matter.. really. [source]
A comment made during the second incident
ok.. i believe that it’s time for me to say something. afterall, this huge hullaballoo was created and imagined from something that i wrote.
so here’s my official statement:
i’m going to watch my DVDs 🙂
BYE! [source]
On both occasions, the choice of words created a brouhaha. On both occasions, there were no proper explanation. On both occasions, the step to diffuse the tension by taking up responsibility for a bad choice of words or statements was never taken.
But looking at DK’s case in specific, I think he had it even worse than the first case. At least the comment for the first case had even looked like a plea – if not a demand – to put an end to it. However, the comment of the second case has pretty deftly and summarily dismissed DK. It practically also trampled upon dhope‘s attempt at reconciliation with contempt – though I’ll leave it to dhope to draw his own conclusion. In fact, it almost seems like a deliberate choice in doing so to make almost everyone else who had made a comment look stupid. If I had read further in between the lines, I think I would even detect a smirk in there. And frankly, that’s really not hard to imagine.
But wait, just who the fxxk asked me to imagine things anyway? Maybe I should call 1-800-DREAM-WORKS to see if they have any use for that imagination! But really, no one really cares how I feel or what I imagined anyway. I won’t delude myself that how I felt matters. There maybe those who disagrees completely with how both matter is handled but that’s not the same as caring about how I felt.
By the way, I think it’s better for me to end my post – before I hear the chorus of sycophants and ball carriers saying: ‘If you don’t like it and you are so unhappy, you can always leave. The ‘community’ can always do without you.’
Alternatively, you can just dial this helpdesk number: 1-800-WHO-CARES. (Dial this number too if you think I cared about your counter opinion to what I am saying here.)
Nuff said. Have a great weekend ahead – It’s REAL.
