fcheblog: Frank Ch. Eigler's insignificant weblog² »

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Hey man, shit happens. I certainly understand your disappointment. You’re right, Wil would have been the most entertaining of the bunch…probably by a mile. However, his cancellation had nothing to do with being unprofessional. Would you rather it had been a car accident or weather which prevented him from speaking instead of mono? I don’t know what your “very definition” of “act of god” is, but I’ll bet a viral infection qualifies if you stop being selfish and think about it. Also, if you’re going to make a technical judgement, consider all of the data; don’t just lament the fact that you didn’t see your desired outcome and then chalk it up to Wil’s so-called unprofessionalism. Real life is sometimes more important than talking about the awesomeness of computer technology. Contrary to what you might think, Wil is an actual person with an actual life. What would you have done in his situation? Think honestly about that.
shane (Email) (URL) - 2005-06-08 09:09

Mr. Wheaton’s weblog entry did not say that this was a sudden condition. I don’t know of the precise timeline here. But if it was gradual enough to let Mr. Wheaton contemplate career changes over the course of weeks, then longer advance notice would have been appropriate.
As for being selfish, sure I am, but not in this case. I did not attend the conference.
Frank - 2005-06-08 09:40

I’m glad Wil didn’t come to the Summit. It would have been an absolutely hideous thing for Red Hat to have forced the man to come when he had mono. I would have been ashamed and embarrased for our company.

Let’s be clear here: no one at Red Hat ever called Wil unprofessional for not coming to the Summit. No, indeedy. It was the method he chose to notify us: his blog. He was telling the world on his blog that he wouldn’t be able to make the Summit, so sorry, despite the fact that iGrep and his publicist were assuring us that he would, in fact, be at the Summit. When we finally made the decision to enlist Greg Stein, chair of the Apache foundation, as his replacement (and Mr. Stein, you freaking rock btw), we’d never received personal word from Wil himself. Simple professional courtesy, don’t you think?

So let bygones be bygones, I say. Wil, if you should happen to read this, I hope you return soon to excellent health, and I applaud your return to focus on the things that you care about. Our little Summit, in the end, was not all that important. But, next time, y’know. A phone call would be nice. People worry.
gdk (Email) - 2005-06-08 10:06

C’mon people… lets get over it already. Nothing… and I repeat NOTHING, should come before a persons health and family. Mono isn’t something you get over a period of time. It hits you like a freight train, and hangs around for months.

I will be the first to admit (having read gdk’s post), Wil could have made a better choice of how to notify the people in charge. But, since I don’t know both sides of the story… I reserve judgement.

I certainly hope all the people giving Wil such a hard time about this are never forced to make a the same decision. If you’ve never walked in someone elses shoes, you should just keep your mouth shut.

I believe Wil made the right decision. And since Mono is VERY contagious, all the folks that attended the convention should thank him.
Nutmegger - 2005-06-08 10:46

Nutmegger says: “If you’ve never walked in someone elses shoes, you should just keep your mouth shut.”
Sorry, I don’t buy this attitude. One cannot be required to wait for perfect information in order to form opinions, to make judgements. As long as he is aware of the limitations of his information, and makes appropriately qualified statements, a person is properly exercising a fundamental human skill.
Frank - 2005-06-08 10:54

So Wil got sick and didn’t rise up from his sickbed to call you? Is that what you’re upset about? I don’t think we have the full story here, and airing it out in partial form here is as bad as what you claim he did on his blog. Shitting on a person because they’re sick and can’t come to your party, for whatever reason, is the height of self-important hubris. Get over yourselves, folks. You come across worse than you’re making him look with your arrogant attitudes.

“We should not shy away from making ethical or technical judgements upon each other’s actions. LIkewise, we should not shy away from accepting such feedback on our own actions. That is the way toward improvement.”

So unctuous, so self-important. You’re forgetting one little thing up there: We should not shy away from getting the facts before shooting off our mouths for everybody to see. But of course that wouldn’t allow you to pontificate, now would it? Naww… it’s much easier to [ed: removed insulting language]
spacewriter - 2005-06-08 13:31

I used to book entertainers for a living and I know that having a cancellation for an important part of your conference sucks. I also know, however, that there are a lot of great unknown people out there that can be retained with very short notice. It sounds like the replacement worked out very well and that the conference was a success without Wil. Also, I can safely say that I have never had an entertainer contact me directly about a cancellation. Maybe it was someone else that dropped the ball on your notification.

So, my question is, why the trackback? You could certainly have posted something to your blog without all of Wil’s readers seeing it. I believe that it was a somewhat pathetic attempt at making him look bad. Very disappointing.
Shay (Email) - 2005-06-08 18:55

I am aware of neither a rule that only people agreeing with a weblog article can link/trackback to it, nor any obligation by that readership to follow the link back here, nor indeed any requirement by Mr. Wheaton to retain the link.
My point was not to make him “look bad”. Rather, I wanted to make clear that having an action be labelled as “unprofessional” can be technically correct and still not mean the end of the world/honour/career/value as a human being. It is a defense of language.
Frank - 2005-06-08 19:47

Having a serious illness is a difficult thing to manage. Professionals often and typically assess their condition daily and hope that they will be well enough to meet their commitments. Many of us even force ourselves to appear at events in very unhealthy states which doesn’t do anybody much good usually. Sometimes people intend to appear and a concerned friend of relative stops them on their way out the door. Hence, short notice to those expecting a person to appear when he said he would. In any case, when a person is ill, they’re obviously not themselves, so to hold them to the same standards as a perfectly healthy person is unreasonable and extremely unprofessional. Childish even.

Before calling someone “unprofessional” I would hope that the history and character of a person is considered before throwing out that term. Wil has never been like this or done this before, in the history of his career. He had a very legitimate reason for not appearing. Opinion and judgment as to his method of delivering word is very petty and truly unprofessional. A professional person knows that people are human, and would have shared that Wil was very ill and could not attend and that you send him best wishes for a speedy recovery. Send some flowers, a nice card, a phone call too. Then shut up about it. THAT is what a professional does. This is exactly why business, in any industry, is frowned upon in the world. When a person is not recognized as being human in order for someone else to not be inconvenienced, we’re in a sorry state in the world. It’s all about saving face right? Dump on a person with illness instead of having to be accountable for having hired a human being. Next time, they should go with their apparent preference and hire robots to appear. I’m sure C3PO and R2D2 could use the work.

p.s. I don’t blog anymore hence the fake URL. However, my email is good.
Carrie (Email) (URL) - 2005-06-09 09:43

I work in theatre in Canada, and I can say as someone who engages actors/designers/technicians on a regular basis that there is nothing wrong or “unprofessional” with what Mr. Wheaton did. All theatre contracts have built into them a clause regarding illness; we accept as part of theatre life the fact that someone might get sick and not go on. The attitude put out by this organization is the truly unprofessional part of this. I’m not sure if they realize a) how close they might be getting to a libel suit, and b) how hard it is going to be to get anyone of high calibre to agree to work for their con after their little tantrum.
Brent (Email) - 2005-06-11 10:17

We seem to be unacquainted with the real facts of this issue. The key questions appear to be these: Who exactly called Wheaton “unprofessional”? When did he and/or his agent formally cancel his booking? Was that done in a professional manner? If not, why all this bleat about the supposed use of the adjective?
Frank - 2005-06-13 11:23