No April Fools Day, Thank You Very Much

[bjarvis]

Yeah, I know it's an event some people live for and I know I'm going to be labelled a huge party-pooper --or worse-- but I can't stand April Fool's Day.

It's hard enough getting accurate information on anything. Deliberate misinformation is just annoying and wastes time & energy. I already have an extremely difficult time trusting other people; if I wanted to be regularly lied to, I'd tune into CSPAN. Throwing honesty, sincerity, accuracy and integrity out the window even one day per year diminishes their value, IMHO, and these are already too rare.


A few years ago, I was substituting in the corporate monitoring center for a guy who was on paternity leave. One of our major UNIX servers, the core of what was then a fairly fragile supply chain, died unexpected so I immediately paged the point-of-contact responsible.

I waited about 15 minutes. No response.

I paged him again, tried (and failed) to call his office number, then started asking around for his cell phone number to tell him to get on the issue immediately.

He answered the phone. "Yeah, I saw your page but I'm not falling for any April fool's stuff this time."

"Guy, your server is down. I don't do April Fool's: this isn't some prank."

"Yeah, right."

"The server is down. You need to do something."

"Forget it, you're not catching me with this one."

"DUDE, YOUR SERVER IS F***ING DEAD! GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR *NOW*!"

There was a few seconds pause. "Are you serious?"

*sigh*

Comments

[emramesha.livejournal.com]

If I'm going to April Fool's Day prank, it's never about work. I stick to personal life stuff. And even then it's sporadic, but sorry, I do enjoy it!

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

There's really a time and a place. Did anyone in management at that company ever explain to people that mixing April Fools with mission business might backfire really badly?

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I've never known policy makers to mention April Fools at any job I've ever had: most have assumed --probably wrongly-- that their staff are sensible enough to know better than to joke about anything related to our core operations in the same way that one doesn't ever joke about bombs near TSA personnel.

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

I have this vague memory that when I was in the military, they DID point this out to us. Which, if true, would be another scary example of how the military was the best managed environment I've ever worked in.

[brunorepublic.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on this. April Fools pranks, as well as practical jokes of any nature, are a capital offense in the Bruno Republic.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Yet another reason why the Bruno Republic is my dream vacation spot.

[abqdan.livejournal.com]

Ugh! I'm sorry, I have enough trouble dealing with reality - I can't deal with other people's concept of practical jokes. What exactly IS practical about them? Life can be strange enough - we don't need to create more drama! LOL

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I usually explain that my grasp on reality is tenuous enough... unnecessary ambiguity is not a good thing.

or, as the French say, "poisson d'Avril"

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

and a merry bah humbug to you too, sweetie!

It is well known that the Beeb had one of the best april fool's broadcasts in history with the Spaghetti Harvest, which can be seen here. It dates back to the mid-50s, when to most English people, "spaghetti" came in a Heinz tin.

== == ==

They've got a lovely one this year - in colour, no less, framed as an ad for their podcasts.

who knew that little adelie penguins were so adept? and so fond of toucans?

I really don't think that honesty, sincerity, accuracy or integrity were significantly imperilled by either of these.

Re: or, as the French say, "poisson d'Avril"

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I really don't think that honesty, sincerity, accuracy or integrity were significantly imperilled by either of these.

I seriously think it is. Willfully generating & distributing misinformation is bad; that a news organization is doing it undermines my trust in it.

Leave the comedy to the entertainment programs, please... I prefer my news to be factual, not intentionally false.

Re: or, as the French say, "poisson d'Avril"

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

what a humourless approach to life. it doesn't match my IRL experience of you.

Re: or, as the French say, "poisson d'Avril"

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

There's plenty of humour in my life, I simply prefer it to be not in my newscasts. Like drinking & driving, news & comedy shouldn't be done simultaneously.