Stupid Decisions 101  | | | |  A couple of lifetimes ago I used to vacation quite a bit. I’d go to San Juan, St. Thomas, with stops in St. John and St. Croix, but mostly I went to Miami Beach. It was only a hop, skip and a jump from Pennsylvania.
I always took my sound movie camera with me.
On one of my trips to Miami Beach, there was a fire at the motel I was staying at on Collins Avenue. It was called “The Dunes.”
Staff members frantically knocked on all doors telling guests to leave their rooms immediately, advising us that there was a fire.
I was in my room, and I began frantically tossing my belongings into my suitcases, but staff would not permit it. I was TOLD to get out and leave my belongings.
So, I grabbed my camera and supplies of film and began taking movies of the action. Fire trucks came from all directions. People on the beach directly outside my door stood transfixed watching the excitement.
After the fire had been put out, I began visiting some of the badly burned rooms along with the guests who had been assigned to them, busily taking movies of the damage and the guests’ reactions.
I still have those movies, which I later had transferred to videotape for playback in my VCR. I was rather pleased with the results.
Some weeks later, I received a piece of mail from management of the motel, offering me a week’s stay at the motel, courtesy of The Dunes. What they wanted in return was for me to bring my films with me for their insurance company to evaluate in an effort to better determine the cause of the fire and assign payment for damages to the proper places.
It was the start of the busy season at the business I had at the time so I really couldn’t think of taking a week off for fun and games.
Instead, I sent them the films, asking them to evaluate, copy if necessary, and return them to me … which they did.
It never occurred to me that I could have struck a deal and SOLD the films to them. If they were willing to foot the expense of a week’s stay at their motel, I’m certain that they would have obliged me. My footage could have saved the insurance company multiple thousands of dollars if the cause of the fire could be pinpointed.
Have you ever looked back and wanted to kick yourself for not taking advantage of an opportunity that presented itself to you?
When I look back on that episode in my life that’s precisely what I’d like to do: kick myself in the butt – but since I’m an a$$ all over, I wouldn’t know where to start kicking.
Memo to self: Hindsight is only good for Monday morning quarterbacking, RJ. © 2008 RJScott
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| 1.  relundad (1581)
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4 years ago
| |  Sometimes when your heart is pure, the monetary value of something is not the first thing that enters your mind. But you are right some time later your are like, dang it!
Many many years ago when I was 19 years old, I had exploratory surgery to try and resolve some female issues. It was an outpatient surgery and recovery time was expected to be one day. No biggie. Well I had the surgery, left the hospital and all seemed well. I went to dinner with my boyfriend at the time and couldn't remember feeling better. That night seemed like all of the others, no post op symptoms. I went to bed as normal.
The next morning I woke up and realized that I could not move from my neck down! Nothing! All I could do was call my boyfriends name to wake him because I could not reach out to him, and explain that I could not move anything on my body! All I could do was cry! Well after contacting the doctors office, my boyfriend was instructed to get me to the ER asap.
When we got there, he carried me in and we told them about the surgery that I had here the day before. To make a long story short, they got my medical records and decided that I had been given too much anethesia! And they were surprised that I even came out of it!!! Imagine that! I was told that one of the factors for dosage is by your weight. Well at the time I weighed 112lbs but was given a dosage for a person that weighed 200lbs, according to my file. Basically I did wake up but all of my muscles looked like a bag of marbles on the XRays!
I was told that hopefully my muscles at some point would relax and maybe things would be back to normal, but at this point no way to be sure of the extent of damage. I was prescribed muscle relaxers and other meds to begin treatment. It took a couple of weeks for anything to happen. Imagine that!
I eventually got back to normal but still have some side effects with my muscles and bones. I never once at the time thought about suing for malpractice. One, I was so young that I didn't know to and two all I thought about was getting back to normal and wondering if this paralysis was permanent or not.
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| 2.  kenzie45230 (3015)
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4 years ago
| |  You know, I cannot think of anything that I really regret. Sure, I have helped friends with new businesses - by writing their press releases, giving them crash courses in marking, and the like. I have given out a few ideas that have earned people money. But I don't ever regret helping friends.
I wrote a poem after 9/11 that ended up being read at memorial services in 3 different states. Only one offered me an honorarium, but I refused it. I figured that I could earn money on the next writing.
My personality is such that I don't look back on things are wish they were different. I use each event - good or bad - as a learning experience. I figure that if I learned something from an event, then it was worth doing (or not doing).
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