Talking Back: Addressing comments made by possible subjects of a previous item
Published: Tuesday, April 17, 2007
-LENN HINDSMANN From time to time we have to respond to comments submitted by readers who are sometimes misled by our point of view or the delivery of it. Sometimes some of our readers may see something we posted as cruel and unwanted. Sure we can get nasty, but we in no way would go against the little people, at least not if we don’t have to. In this case we are addressing two comments submitted by what we think were from Bookspan employees regarding two items on our site. Below are the comments posted and our response to each of them.COMMENTER: Lumping Bookspan Employees in with the "Losers" is unusually cruel. You do realize that Bookspan Employees are people who have children...people who have to put food on the table...people with mortgages or rent and bills to pay...people who have health-care concerns, who cannot afford to lose their coverage...people who are caring for elderly or ill family members...? To callously (and, indeed, almost jovially) list Bookspan Employees among this week's "Losers" is disgustingly low, in my opinion. CONTINUED... While we do understand that the current situation at your company is nothing to joke about, we still have to pull together our weekly list of the week’s Winners Losers and Idiots. Unfortunately because of said situation you being part of the media industry landed you on our losers section of this list. Being part of the losers list doesn’t mean you are “losers”, but you are losers in the sense that you’ve lost or you are about to lose. However we don’t take the things you mentioned above lightly. They are serious concerns that anyone who isn’t sure if they will have a job tomorrow would have. So to you we say no heart feelings just business, and don’t be shocked if and when you do land on our losers list again this week. COMMENTER: I truly do not understand your insistence on referring to this as a "blood bath," based on one former employee's entirely inappropriate use of the phrase. And thank you so much for your kind "advice." It warms the very cockles of my heart to know that you, "Len Hindsmann" (whoever you are), are looking out for the lil' folks. Honestly, I am just so thankful for the fact that you have not seized upon this opportunity to poke fun at the Bookspan employees. You are the definition of a true humanitarian, Len Hindsmann. I salute you. Well thank you for the salute friend. But you’re mistaken if you think we are basing our following of this unfolding story on that one individual we spoke of before. We keep our sources in the upper echelons of the food chain and by that we mean, the mother ship. See the funny thing is when you work for the company that is part of a bigger organization, you tend to get the cosmetic version (if you will) of the whole situation from your manager and/or director which is always the case. But when you don’t work for the company and you have sources within the mother ship, you get info, not even your manager and/or director are privy to. OK so it was premature to label the situation a blood bath because it hasn’t taken place as yet, and who knows if it even will. In no way do we make fun of people’s jobs possibly being on the line, unless we really hate em, we just write about it our way that’s all. On that note, our sources just told us that Markus Wilhelm’s parking spot is officially up for grabs. We welcome and value feed back from our readers, but just know that when you submit a comment we may “Talk Back” because well, some comments just call for it. Labels: Bookspan, Commenters, TALKBACK |


