For The Love Of Dissent

Just had an interesting experience at work:

An employee of my company conducted a survey on our collective carbon footprint a few weeks ago. I thought it was a good idea and volunteered to be the liaison for our branch, and to help set up the presentation on the results.

I did a quick walkthrough of the office asking when people would be available for the 15 minute presentation and out of 9 people I talked to I got:

**Two eye rollers stating:

“Why should I care, when there’s other countries of billions making one hundred times the waste…”

- ages 40 and 26.

**A moderate dissenter stating that it was a waste of his time, and company time etc – age, 26.

**And a serious dissenter arguing that “F*ck no, I can’t believe this person is wasting my time and company time on such a survey and presentation…” – age, 50. He also walked me through the fact that everyone in the company wasted 10 minutes on this, calculating the lost dollars.

I argued briefly (and only briefly) that it is important, seeing as we’re consultants who drive trucks around the province and work with and for forestry companies. We may be the heart of the carbon industry.

Honestly, I didn’t know we had such lackluster environmental consultants here (at work). Give them a paycheque and a map, and all else can turn to shit.