Tag: compensation

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Owning the Worst

I’m going to ask my fellow Denver Bronco fans to go to a very dark place for a moment.

Imagine that the recent Super Bowl bus accident was worse. Imagine that Von Miller, our monster with a license to sack, was hurt badly. So badly, in fact, that he was unable to suit up and take the field for Super Bowl 50.

Undaunted, the brothers of the Orange Crush know exactly what they must do. And when game time comes, they stream onto the field – 10 players, ready to go, with a gap where Miller would normally stand.

“We can’t let ourselves be dragged down by this,” they insist. “We have to think positively. If we play as though Von were still here, the rest won’t matter.”

And then of course, they get beaten like a drum. Why? Because you’ve still got 10 men going up against 11. And all the positive thinking in the world won’t change the realities of math.

It sounds obvious. Even a little bit silly.

But when it comes to the world of chronic illness, you’d be amazed how many missing Millers there are.

My wife Heather runs into this every so often online. Her own list of chronic conditions would have medical students fighting for the chance to invite her to show-and-tell. Crohn’s disease. Multiple sclerosis. Ankylosing spondylitis. A couple of others that lengthen the medical file and send spell check screaming for help.

Because of her situation, she visits a lot of patient-oriented online forums and groups. And when someone else wants to talk about their condition or the pain and discomfort it causes, she’ll usually respond, just to help the person see they’re not alone.

Unless, of course, someone else closes off the discussion first by insisting that “we don’t want to dwell on our illness here.” Or that “Focusing on it only gives it power over you.” Or otherwise implies (or states!) that by refusing to acknowledge the illness, you can continue to live your life in spite of it – sort of a medical prosperity gospel.

Few things will infuriate Heather more quickly.

“There’s not a part of my life that hasn’t been touched by this,” she told me recently, after one more clash with the power of positive thinking. “You have this – and it’s OK. You have to work with what you have.”

That’s true of so much more than the medical.

It’s a human thing to try to wish problems away, or to hope that ignoring an issue will eventually resolve it. It’s rarely that easy. You can compensate for it. Work around it. Even maybe come to peace with it. But outright denial not only doesn’t help, it can often make the problem worse. Ever driven a car too long on a flat tire? Or tried to exercise through a minor injury, only to discover what a major one’s like?

Contrary to the popular imagery, chronic illness isn’t a war. Not in the usual sense, anyway, where you can rally the cavalry and sweep the enemy off the field. It’s more like being a civilian during the Blitz, the German bombing of London in World War II. You don’t ignore the bombs. You take shelter when you have to. But you keep on living your life as best you can, making adjustments for what’s been damaged or lost.

It doesn’t mean you drown in your pain or become morbidly obsessed with your condition. But you forge a sort of partnership, taking what you can, planning where you must. Not a life without hope – quite the opposite! – but a life with the awareness and effort that real hope requires.

It’s OK to not be better. It’s not your fault. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed. You can own it, and in doing so, deal with it.

Take your best 11 and put ‘em out there. It might not be the team you want. But it’s the one you’ve got.

Play hard.

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Sing it Out

Singing waiters, rejoice. Your time of birthday deliverance is at hand.

If you’ve ever been out to eat, you know that there are three certainties in modern casual dining: that a tip is 20 percent, that the TV with the game you’re interested in isn’t visible from your table, and that if it’s your birthday, you will be humiliated by a team of waiters singing anything but “Happy Birthday.” You may hear the William Tell Overture. (“Merry day of birth to you, have some cake and candles too!”) You may get painfully rewritten lyrics set to “Stand by Me” or “Kill the Wabbit” … uh, I mean “Flight of the Valkyries.” But you will not get the classic off-key grade-school anthem that has shattered eardrums since time immemorial.

Until now.

A federal court recently ruled that “Happy Birthday’s” copyright is dead. More than dead. According to the judge, the song should have been out of copyright 80 years ago, making its rights the musical equivalent of a George Romero zombie movie. (“Caaaaaaaaaake.”)

Silly argument? Not for the owner and not for anyone wanting to belt out the birthday ballad in public. In fact, “Happy Birthday” has been big business, generating about $2 million a year in royalties from movie producers, restaurants and anyone else who wanted the song and didn’t want a visit from the Warner-Chappell attorneys.

I’ll write that again. Two million dollars a year. For a song that pre-dates World War I.

OK, that does seem silly.

Mind you, this isn’t a diatribe against having copyright at all, or patents, or trademarks, or all the other wonderful things that encourage ideas and ensure a creator gets something of what’s coming to them. (Mark Twain famously said that a country without patent laws was like a crab, only able to travel sideways or backwards.) But it is possible to stay at the party too long. And when “fair compensation” starts to turn into “I’m holding you up because I can,” that’s when people start to object.

We saw a more serious version of this recently in the medical world. The media – both mass and social – exploded after the new owner of a common AIDS drug, Daraprim, announced that its price would go up from $13.50 to $750 a dose. By most estimates, the drug costs about $1 a dose to make.

The word “outrage” doesn’t really go far enough. Twitter went nuclear. Everyone from patients to politicians added their denunciations. And within a day or two of the online fire and brimstone, a white flag went up – Daraprim’s price would go down again. (By how much has not yet been said as I write this.)

Call it supply and demand in vivid action. An owner can charge what he likes for a product. But if no one wants to pay it – if people are actively offended by paying it – it’s time to find another price or another product.

At the bottom of all this is a much-derided word: fair. “Life’s not fair,” we’re told over and over again. But one of our more admirable qualities as a species is a rock-bottom belief that it should be. Granted, sometimes we go too far – anything can go too far – but for the most part, it’s a guide to common decency, empathy, and all the qualities encapsulated in “liberty and justice for all.”
Fairness means we look out for each other, because one day it might be ourselves. It means we think about what we do and why. It means we don’t take unjust advantage of a situation.

We’re not perfect about it. We’re not going to be. But the fact that we still care about trying says something good about us.

Maybe it’s like anything else – if we keep trying, it gets easier. It might even become a piece of cake.

And when it does, we’re all set to sing.

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The Daily Pay-Per

Forget the lemonade stands and the car washes. If you want to make a quick few bucks, social media may just be your cash cow. Or at least a very small calf.

For those who missed it, the Associated Press reported the other day on two social networks that will pay for your posts. Bubblews starts at a penny per like, view or comment for posts of a certain length (though the full formula gets a little more involved) while Bonzo Me pays its most popular posts a percentage of its ad revenue.

It ain’t much. But it’s something.

“No one should come to our site in anticipation of being able to quit their day job,” Bubblews CEO Arvind Dixit told the AP. “But we are trying to be fair with our users.”

Strangely enough, I’ve got mixed feelings on this one.

On the one hand, my writer brain is ecstatic that someone finally gets it. People go online for the content: to read stories, see pictures, watch videos, keep up with people and things they know and love. And for the most part, the bloggers, posters, video-makers, lovers, dreamers and other members of the Rainbow Connection do it for free.

That’s one thing when you’re putting up a note to friends that Aunt Ginny just got out of the hospital. But when it’s something that takes time and labor … well, as the old sermon goes, the workman is worthy of his hire. In particular, a lot of news agencies (he said modestly) have put a lot of content on the social networks; it’d be kind of nice to see even a modest return.

But – and yeah, you knew there’d be a but – there’s a potential tradeoff. He who pays, says.

I brought this up years ago when I jokingly suggested a federal bailout of the newspaper industry. While I don’t know a newspaper alive that wouldn’t cheer at a new funding source, I know plenty who would be hesitant to go on the government payroll. The reason is obvious: part of the job of the press is to challenge government when necessary, and that’s hard to do when it’s their money sitting in your bank account.

This situation is a little less blatant. And it could be argued that the social networks already have all the control they need. After all, we’re users of a free service, not customers; the Facebooks and Twitters and all the rest pay for the space and set the rules.

But given that, is it wise to offer one more leash?

Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe it’s a good thing to make every poster a freelancer-in-waiting. If the control’s going to be there anyway, might as well cash in on it, right? Heaven knows most of us could use it.

But every time we’ve thought the social networks couldn’t possibly go farther, they’ve found a way. (Psychological experimentation, anyone?) And so I hate to open one more door, even if it’s one that holds a small paycheck.

It’s one thing to be a guest. Another to be an employee. For better and worse.

How will it all play out?

I’ll keep you posted.