Thursday, July 31, 2008

To stop a beheading or not?



Around 1:30am in Manitoba, a 40-year-old man decided he'd proceed to butcher and behead the guy sitting beside him on the Greyhound bus.

The bus pulled over when the attack was noticed, and everyone on the bus proceeded to flee to safety out the front doors as this maniac repeatedly stabbed the other passenger up to 50 times according to witnesses. After he finished stabbing the guy, he proceeded to slice off his head with his large hunting knife, then take the head out the front door of the bus and drop it on the ground for everyone to see.

Now the question is, would you have done anything to stop it?

Today I had a conversation with my colleagues at work about this very subject. My boss said, while she would help anyone in need on the street, she doesn't think she'd be able to physically save someone from danger. My other co-worker said he would definitely have done something, especially if there were other strong people on the bus to overpower the suspect.

My reasoning was to get off the bus simply because if I took into consideration the time - 1:30am - so I'd be sleeping more than likely. If i woke up to that I wouldn't know what to do but follow the crowd off the bus. Also, chances are the repeated stab wounds had already done the trick, and if someone went to stop him, who knows what that guy would've done.

The coworker brought up a good point, though; what if the person being stabbed happened to be a frail old woman or a young helpless girl? Would you do something then?

It's weird how the human thought process works. With the man being stabbed you're likely to not care as much, but if it's someone society deems as weak, then you'd step in without thinking; at least I would.

What would YOU do in each possible scenario? Save the young man? elderly woman? young girl? Or would you run away like everyone else did?

Think about it...

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Making Connections, Learning New Things

I've been working at EMS for just about a month now and things are going pretty well.

My co-workers are a great bunch of people and so are those I report to. My main boss is a former journalist turned media relations person, so minus the experience I think we have quite a bit in common. She's new at the whole media relations thing, having worked there for I think just over a year now. I can approach her about anything really and she's willing to give me the reigns on certain assignments. I'm honestly a little shocked that I get to do some things, but I'm completely excited by the opportunities I'm being given.

In one month I've learned so much that I'll be able to take back to school in the fall. I've written speeches, corporate emails, corporate letters, as well as stories for the newsletter. In the future I'll be getting to do some design (hopefully this week), backgrounders for media events and maybe some press releases among other things.

It can be boring sometimes as I'm only an assistant and don't have near the responsibility that a media relations person would have. Though like I said the people are great and they're easy to talk to, and also my Internet connection isn't as strict as it was at the TTC, thankfully, so I can check my email as well as this page, and msn also.

Anyway I think that's it for now. I hope to update more often on how things are going for me.

Cheers!