Author: Frank (---.static.gwi.net)
Date: 05-28-08 12:19
True story ... only somewhat related. But maybe there's a point in here somewhere. Unusual for me, but what the heck!
Last year my wife, kids and I were flying from Chicago to Manchester, NH on Southwest Airlines. Everybody boards the plane (no assigned seats on Southwest) and we're ready to go.
The flight attendant gets on the intercom and announces that there is a mother traveling with two small children and the three of them are seperated. Would anybody be willing to switch seats so they could sit together? My wife and I volunteer ... not because we are saints but because it didn't seem like that big a deal. We'll just move three of us to free up the seats so this lady can sit with her two young children. (ages 1 + 3 I'd guess).
We get up to move and it turns out my wife and I are going to take the lady's seat, along with the seat of one of her kids. These seats are next to each other. Amazingly enough, there is a gentleman sitting in the 3rd seat of the row she was already sitting in. This perplexed me, as it would have made the most sense for the guy sitting in her row to give up his seat to the 2nd kid. Easier for everybody involved. But now the lady has to climb out of the window/middle and over the guy ... relocate to another row with her two young kids. My wife and I relocate into the two seats she vacated and the guy settles back into his spot.
My curiosity got the better of me, so later in the flight I asked the flight attendant why they didn't just ask the guy to move. She laughs and says that they did ask him and he replied "It's first-come first-served and this is my seat and I don't have to give it up for anybody". Fair enough, he's entitled to his seat ... even if it might have made the poor mom's life a little bit easier to move.
As the flight goes on, the guy in question pulls out his books. He's in his 20s I guess, and he's a student. Turns out he is a student at the Harvard Business School. A future titan of industry I am sure.
So I wrote a letter to the Dean of said business school and asked how an education from the Harvard Business School was going to do anybody any good if they couldn't even help a mother of two children out on an airplane. Ergonomics, economics, micro, macro, marketing, finance, coprporate takeovers ... blah blah blah ... if the esteemed institutions of higher learning couldn't turn out HUMAN BEINGS, what good were they doing? Never heard back.
But I did realize one thing: it's not necessarily the institution's fault. At some point in time, each of us as individuals has to take responsibility for our actions and do what we can to make the world a better place.
Or as a friend of mine once said "I went to an Ivy League school and realized pretty quickly that a fat wallet or a fancy diploma doesn't mean you're not an a######." Wise words from a wise Ivy-educated man.
The even better news? That friend of mine GETS Culebra with all it's nuances. Even reads this forum.
So friend of mine, this Medalla's for you. I'll take mine ice-cold with Felo at the Hotel Puerto Rico. :-)
Frank
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