(no subject)

Got this from dargie:

1) Tidying up, you come across your teenage daughter's diary. Do you read it?

Absolutely not. I wouldn't even consider it. I would want to teach her respect for the person, privacy, and property of others - and also to teach her simple honesty. I think reading another person's diary is a terrible thing to do and I just wouldn't do it, period, under any curcumstances. I wouldn't read a stranger's diary if I found it, either.

Historical documents are different. Published works and LJs are different. Diaries I am invited to read are different. But I would never, never read someone else's private papers without their permission, and that goes double for a daughter. I consider reading a daughter's diary a form of parental abuse.

I feel strongly about this because when I was newly married (long ago now) my husband (now long since, my ex-husband) found my diaries and read them. He said he was scanning them for his name. He didn't find his name, but he found a lot of things which would have been better for both of us if he hadn't read them, and he gave me a lot of trouble about them and didn't keep them all to himself, either. I still flinch at the memory.


2) An executive at a large company will give you a big contract but demands a cash kickback. Do you agree to pay?

No, of course not. Are we going to start getting to some difficult questions soon?


3) You work closely with a colleague who has a bad stutter. When he struggles to finish sentences, do you help?

No. I have a friend who stutters and I wait patiently for him to finish sentences. I know how I'd feel in his place. With other people I supply missing words all the time, but with him - the conversational pattern is quite different, it's impossible not to be aware of it, and, being aware, I don't try to push him to my speed. I know I have a quick conversational style. I can temper it when I have to.