July 30, 1999
Everyone these days is looking for compensation. There is
no wrong too small or too far in the past to keep people from
demanding what they think is rightfully there's.
Today we don't just demand compensation for outrageous wrongs
and genuine injustices. People want it for not being smart enough,
or lucky enough, or appreciated enough.
Get passed over for a promotion? Demand compensation. Grandparents
get beaten up by someone else's grandparents seventy years ago
in another country? Demand compensation. Don't qualify for the
Olympics just because you get winded walking to the store ...
well, you get the idea.
Every hurt feeling has to be fixed, and making people feel
better always comes with a hefty price tag.
In our criminal justice system judges are now being encouraged
in some cases to be lenient with Native offenders at sentencing.
They are being asked to take into consideration the "historic
wrongs done to their people." It's sort of compensation
on the intergenerational installment plan.
If I ever get arrested, I'll have to remember to mention that
my great grandfather was an orphan. It has nothing to do with
me, but I'm sure the judge will want to be lenient to compensate
me for it.
It used to be common knowledge that hot coffee was hot. Now
you are entitled to hefty cash compensation if you spill the
hot coffee on you and it turns out to be hot. I think this is
the real reason why all the coffee chains are now pushing iced
coffee.
With everyone trying to claim their piece of the compensation
pie, I thought I'd compile a rough guide to what kind of cash
people can expect to get:
- Unhappy childhood: $ 0.
- Unhappy childhood that results in an appearance on Jerry
Springer: $ 99.99.
- Unhappy childhood that results in an appearance on Jerry
Springer and your cross-dressing half brother tears off your
shirt: $ 1,000.
- Unhappy childhood if you end up a drug addict who murders
his parents but gets Oliver Stone to do the movie: $1 million.
- If your lawyer keeps you waiting at reception for hours:
$ 0.
- If you keep your lawyer waiting: $ 300 per hour.
- If you keep your lawyer and your wife's lawyer waiting: $
600 per hour.
- If you do your job right 25% of the time: $ 0.
- If you are a baseball player with a .250 batting average:
$ 3 million.
- A happy marriage: $ 0.
- An unhappy marriage: seven years in court and half the stuff.
- An unhappy marriage that ends in murder: seven years in jail
and all the stuff.
- Failing university: $ 0.
- Failing university if it hurts your self esteem and sense
of self as a person deserving of unconditional love: $ 50,000.
- Failing university if it hurts your self esteem and sense
of worth as a person deserving of unconditional love and you
are a member of a militant minority: $ 1 million, an honourary
Ph.D., and a scholarship named after you.
- Passing university and actually getting a job: a lifetime
of clock punching, tax paying and at the end an inadequate pension.
I guess some kinds of compensation are better than others.
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