The strange case of invisible ink at the polling place, again
Submitted by Erik Petersen on Thu, 07/02/2008 - 12:45.
metaphors | people issues | perspectives
Investigating a curious quality tale can be as challenging as trying to investigate an obscure unclear bug reported by beta testers, often influenced by your own knowledge and experience models. Trying to get to how, what, where, when, and who is complicated by missing and sometimes contradictory information.
My initial reaction to the invisible ink pens story was framed by the senior manager, blaming the incident on the "utter stupidity" of his staff. This attempt to deflect the blame in my experience models often hides process failures. My earlier post had this conclusion. Now, extra information is changing my interpretation toward a case of id10t code. My experience models also give me strong empathy with the election board spokesman, James Allen, who said, "You spend months trying to prepare for every contingency, trying to anticipate every possible way people might be confused. Then this? Incredible!" A voter also reported that the staff had insisted they were trained in the use of the styluses as pens, and voters believed them on that basis, despite their natural skepticism. There seemed to be no simple way to really understand what happened. Then, to my surprise, I discovered a first-hand voter account (occasional strong language warning) that not only explains the situation but also shows how important voting is for some people, and their subsequent frustration and anger. As Amy says, "There is plenty of stupid to go around!"
My initial reaction to the invisible ink pens story was framed by the senior manager, blaming the incident on the "utter stupidity" of his staff. This attempt to deflect the blame in my experience models often hides process failures. My earlier post had this conclusion. Now, extra information is changing my interpretation toward a case of id10t code. My experience models also give me strong empathy with the election board spokesman, James Allen, who said, "You spend months trying to prepare for every contingency, trying to anticipate every possible way people might be confused. Then this? Incredible!" A voter also reported that the staff had insisted they were trained in the use of the styluses as pens, and voters believed them on that basis, despite their natural skepticism. There seemed to be no simple way to really understand what happened. Then, to my surprise, I discovered a first-hand voter account (occasional strong language warning) that not only explains the situation but also shows how important voting is for some people, and their subsequent frustration and anger. As Amy says, "There is plenty of stupid to go around!"