In an ongoing effort to advance the art of complaint, I have decided to post some of the Strongly Worded Letters that I have crafted in response to personal matters that have arisen. To be clear, NONE of the letters posted were in relation to my day-job as a sometimes-civil-litigator.
On May 30th of this year, my wife had an incident wherein she had our toddler out and about in Saskatoon's Broadway region on a day that she was attempting to potty train him. In her wisdom, she had taken the potty with her in case he had to go. And he did - on a sidewalk at the back of a Starbucks. Some canny observer snapped a photo of him sitting on his potty on the sidewalk and, in a gesture that signals the civil rot of our times, promptly forwarded the photo to local C95 radio host DJ Tanner (yes - that's actually the name with which he has anointed himself... presumably Uncle Jesse will have a sister show on Rawlco's 102 this fall), a catalyst in the civic rot, promptly posted the photo to the C95 Facebook page. The hits and comments began to rack up, and it was only brought to our attention by someone who texted my sister-in-law a half-hour after it had been posted asking if that was our guy and my wife in the photo. Indeed.
Our eldest toddler is an interesting fellow, and there is certainly some comic effect in a toddler sitting on a potty on a sunny sidewalk, reading a book (he likes to read). At some level I chuckled to myself. I also recognize there is some room to debate my wife's actions - should a toddler be going to the potty on a public sidewalk outside a coffee shop? Perhaps not, although the comment string under the photo appeared to condone her actions for the most part. Frankly, I suspect the number of adults urinating directly on the ground and buildings in the Broadway area on any given Friday night far eclipses the minor discord a singular toddler on a potty might cause to the region. I promptly sent an email to C95 and the photo disappeared as quickly as it was posted.
Of this whole affair, what perplexed and surprised me the most was the shear number of people following the C95 Facebook page - how did this photo rack-up hundreds of comments in a mere 30 minutes? That's what people are doing with their time? They're just waiting for something juicy to pop-up on C95? This was a week day, in the middle of the morning - aren't people doing work stuff? If people followed some legit journalistic sources as fervently as they follow C95, perhaps we'd be living in a more civil, informed society. To have the Saskatoon public weighing-in on my child's bathroom habits seems like disappointing waste of resources.
Regardless, I promptly put on my angry parent hat and sent the following letter to the General Manager of C95. She did call to apologize afterward, and she assured me that posting toddlers-on-potty's was contrary to the policies of Rawlco Radio, God bless 'em. However, she did not offer us any free concert tickets, which was unfortunate. If you think we deserve free concert tickets, at least some Dora the Explorer Musical tickets or something for our little guy who generated so much Facebook traffic for C95, please send an email on our behalf to the General Manager: kwerner@rawlco.com.
Here is the Strongly Worded Letter:
Dear Ms. Werner:
The world is often a whimsical place. I count myself among
those who take some measure of joy in the unexpected oddities the world
displays, and I suspect my colleagues would concur that I have a relatively
deep sense of humour respecting most things in life. I have attached a photo of
my child, a curious and odd two-year-old, that was recently posted by
your host DJ Tanner to the C95 Facebook page. The attached is a PDF printout of
the photo and some comments.
At first glance, I concur that there is something mildly
comical about a toddler sitting on a potty on a sidewalk – you don’t expect to
see that every day. If I came upon that scene myself, I suppose I might find it
mildly amusing, and I might relay the odd occurrence to others in conversation.
However, the photo was taken of my wife and child, without their knowledge or
consent, and further posted to the publicly accessible, nigh, publicly promoted
Facebook page of your sizable local media outlet.
To give you some pause for consideration, the back end of
this story is that I have an able and dedicated wife, who was trying to get
some exercise with her two small children, while assisting a reticent and timid
two-year-old to learn to use the potty in a relatively discrete fashion.
Whether my wife should have had my son on a potty on a sidewalk is, I suppose,
open to question. But I’m not sure that a public figure posting a photo of my
vulnerable two-year-old going to the bathroom on C95’s Facebook page is the
appropriate way to incite debate over such an important public issue as
toddlers on potties in public (the old TPP debate, which is truly of
significant public importance). If DJ Tanner had an issue with my wife’s
conduct, he could have taken the reasonable and civilized course of action and
advised my wife he had concerns respecting her conduct. Instead, he approached
the situation with the tact and acumen of a daft weasel, snapping a surreptitious
photo to immediately display to the world for comment. Nice work DJ Tanner –
you are truly a bastion of quality journalism. We generally try our best not to
pursue humour through the public humiliation of a toddler in a vulnerable
circumstance. Would he also like a photo of me urinating on the roadside during
a long car trip, as I’d be pleased to provide it for immediate posting? Does he
have a collection of child-on-potty photo’s he’d like to share?
To refrain from posting photos of children going to the
bathroom on a major media website seems like a pretty easy standard to meet.
Certainly, we did not find the public humiliation of our son to be terribly
amusing.
I recognize that, in all likelihood, little damage resulted
from what transpired because it appears the photo was removed about an hour
after it was posted. However, my wife and I continue to feel a sense of outrage
that our son, in a vulnerable state, was posted for the amusement of C95
followers. Secondly, I have concerns that your host, DJ Tanner, who has access
to, apparently, several very public forums for giving birth to his grand ideas
and concerns, saw fit to post a photo of a child going to the bathroom on your
Facebook page. The fact that you removed the photo promptly (whether it was at
my request, or of your own accord) suggests that you concur with our assessment
of the circumstance. Perhaps C95 should consider whether DJ Tanner should have
such ready access to C95’s electronic media.
I am uncertain as to what broadcast, telecommunication or
other regulations or general laws such a post might violate, but on civilized
standards, it was in poor taste. We kindly ask that you explain to us why DJ
Tanner posted the photo, what his intentions were in doing so, and why the
photo was removed. Secondly, we would appreciate some assurance that it is
contrary to C95’s policy to post photos of children going to the bathroom (it
sounds odd to even inquire of such a thing, as I suspect that posting public
photos of children going to the bathroom might actually be illegal…
nonetheless, some assurance would be nice) and that you will take measures to
ensure it does not happen in the future. Frankly, it’s toilet humour that’s fit
for the potty.
Angry Father and Concerned Citizen,
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