Passive/Agressive

If there is one thing I dislike in our wimpy communication skills it has to be this inability to speak clearly. I noticed this when I was much younger. Friends and I would be driving somewhere, it was Southern California and driving somewhere was always the start of whatever adventure we were involved in. What I began to hate was the inability of friends to make a decision. The conversation would almost always go something like this, "where do you guys want to grab something to eat?"

Then, almost every time, the choices would be spurted out, and everyone would hem and haw and soon, nothing was decided, all the while we would be passing perfectly acceptable food options. What struck me was that no one wanted to be responsible for such a simple decision. At some point, I just decided to be a decision maker, because what we ended up often doing was deferring to no one, and no decision would be made.

I have been haunted with this sort of passive aggressive idiocy my entire life. I had a long term relationship with one such woman, who I think made an attempt to never be passionate about anything, that way life in general could not overwhelm her. Imagine how empty that sort of existence is? Never commit to anything, never experience anything, never be responsible for anything.

So, imagine my response when I recently received a notice from the organizers of the G-20 meeting coming up in a couple of weeks in Pittsburgh. It was from the organizers, but also the secret service and the White House press office. It contained all this information on where to pick up press credentials, where different media could send stories and where interviews would be conducted. All sorts of useful information, except one piece that could be important. This email did not offer any sense if the people receiving it would be credentialed. It seems that letting people know in advance if they would be receiving the credentials to cover the G-20 is not as important as safe places to park satellite trucks.

If that is not bad enough, I got a call from a friend at the New York Post and the New York Times yesterday afternoon, asking if I had heard anything about the credential process. I asked if they had the same informational email as the one I received. They were surprised, no they said, no email at all.

Passive, meet aggressive.