Diane Pucin cut by LA Times

You're closer than you might realize, Shark.

 

Wow, with that she is the Rudy Giuliani of sportswriters.

 

I don't think 9/11 even belongs in the discussion. People stay over, work an extra day, etc., all the time. Sometimes those decisions have coincidentally tragic consequences. You stay an hour late at work, get hit by a drunk driver on the way home. That wouldn't have happened had you left at your regular time. It happens.

If the 9/11 attacks had happened on, say, 9/10, her "sacrifice" for her company could have saved her life. Roll of the dice, pure and simple.

I would think this would be a reporter who wakes up every morning feeling blessed to be alive. Sure doesn't sound like it, though.

 

She made no "sacrifice." She wasn't on the fucking plane.

It'd be like me, at the last newspaper I worked at, saying, "I could've walked by the press on my way to my car, and the press could've malfunctioned and sent shrapnel into my skull, therefore I should always by employed by this paper because of the risks I'm taking."

 

I think you are misreading her use of the word.

To her, the "sacrifice" was having to stay an extra day instead of heading home after a long road trip. And, by sheer coincidence, the sacrifice of staying an extra day could have had tragic consequences. The sacrifice had already been made before the flight took off.

It's when she starts playing the would-be martyr ("I made this sacrifice, and it almost killed me") that she goes off the rails. No good deed goes unpunished run amok.

 

If they ousted her in January of 2002, maybe you talk about the 9/11 stuff. In 2014? Not so much.

 

I understand that. I'm just failing to see why I'm supposed to sympathize with her based on what "could have" happened.

I "could have" gotten into a fatal car crash if I left my newsroom at 2:30 a.m. instead of actually leaving at 1:30, before the bars close.

But, I didn't. And, neither did she.

 

I don't know what the sock puppet knows about it ... but if you have a forum to express what you can do in the new world and you take the opportunity to say "9/11 9/11 9/11 and oh by the way 9/11," that goes a long way to explaining management's side of it.

 

Obviously none of my business, but I find the wording being used by many (including Ed Sherman) that she was "fired" vs. being "laid off" to be interesting, especially with snarkshark's posts on here about it being for cause.

A jaded person could make the leap in assumption that she's trotting out the "I almost died in sacrifice for my paper" line of garbage to draw attention away from such a firing and gain sympathy.

 

There's too many crazy things in her little introduction that need to be pointed out. Does she think she was on the plane? Because I'm confused.

No. "For that," she actually stayed alive. If she didn't stay another day, she could have been dead. She has it the wrong way.

Even if she is talking about the "sacrifice" of staying at the US Open one more day (what a terrible thing), again, that sacrifice didn't kill her, it actually kept her alive.

The saddest part of all of this strange delusion is that she might actually think this is going to help her get another job, when it will probably do the opposite.

 

I think after reading that, my sympathy level for her just went down considerably.

She's making this personal and it's not.

I feel sorry for her. But she's just one of thousands of journalists who busted their asses and made personal sacrifices for their jobs to be unceremoniously shown the door. So what? That's life. Get over it and move on.

I don't know a single journalist who traveled extensively for the job who doesn't have a "I almost died on this trip." story. Referencing it in an effort to get additional sympathy just really rubs me the wrong way.

 

Sometimes it's worse when it's not personal.

"Sorry, you don't matter. But, hey, we're all family here."