the two Australian DJs apologizing for their prank call to the hospital for information about the Duchess of Windsor – posing as the Queen and Prince Charles – a call which has been implicated as contributing to the suicide of the nurse who innocently passed the call through to a colleague caring for Kate.
As I listened to them justify their actions, I was taken by two things:
them saying that because their accents were so bad, they never expected to be taken seriously.
Precisely how in the world would the average person know that?
How many prolonged conversations with royalty do most people have?
How would they know if the accents were sub par?
Maybe the Queen was having a bad day – or maybe she'd nipped too many hot toddies?
Give the woman a break, she just celebrated 60 years on the job – she’s entitled to sound bad at the end of the day!
Despite HIPPA laws, and maybe with some reservations, I’d bet my next paycheck that if Malia or Sasha were admitted to our hospital and someone called saying he was the President and ‘sounded’ even vaguely like Barack, he’d be passed through to the floor where his daughter was for an update.
I was also struck by their phrase – “I never thought it would go so far”.
Honestly, they could have stopped after the first 3 words – I never thought.
Who among us hasn’t been guilty of acting or saying something that, momentarily, in our heads and hearts sounds innocently funny?
Only to find that once the words left our mouths, they wounded or were not received in the same way we intended.
Words which, maybe, after serious reflection, we realize we didn’t mean so innocently after all.
We can never be sure where someone else is in their journey when we encounter them – how fragile or vulnerable they might be.
There is so much pain we can’t control in this world.
Maybe being more intentional and self aware is a place to start to avoid inflicting any more.
There are no villains in this scenario, no victims - just plenty of flawed human beings.
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