The Blame Game

by Grace O'Malley


"No one is willing to acknowledge a fault in himself when a more agreeable motive can be found for the estrangement of his acquaintances" ~ Mark Twain

The blame game. Don't we all do it?

It starts when we are children "The dog did it" "I don't know" "It wasn't me" "I swear I didn't do it"

By the time we are adults we have learned to hone our skills. What do we do? The report you were supposed to finish hasn't even been started: the computer dumped it before you could back it up. You burn dinner because you were on Facebook and forgot to check it: the oven is not working right. You crash into the car in front of you because you were on the phone and not paying attention: the idiot cut in front of you and slammed on the breaks.

Uh huh. Right.

Do not get me started on the people who enjoy clawing their way up the ladder of success by taking credit for another's accomplishments and blaming who they can for their failures. Instead of getting ahead by hard work and knowledge, they climb over the bodies of those who were foolish enough to get in their way.

Some take it a step farther.

Do you all remember many years ago when the story surfaced about the woman who went to McDonalds, ordered hot coffee, promptly spilled the coffee on herself, then turned around and sued McDonalds for millions? It was such an outrageous story at the time, and still is. Yet, because she believed she was wronged, she took the issue to court, sued, and won. Welcome to the world of litigious blame. Let the games begin.

It baffles the mind that someone has the utter gall to sue an organization because they were stupid enough to not use common sense. What is worse is that juries agree. They enjoy sticking it to the companies with big dollar signs after their names. Why? It is easier to blame someone else than admit we screwed up.

And we do.

Screw up.

Frequently.

We are human and not infallible. The idea is to admit when we do wrong, learn from it and try not to do it again. But no that is not the way some do it.

Maybe it is time we all take a lesson from Henry Ford who said:

"Don't find fault, find a remedy"

Originally published on SearchWarp.com