When the paw paw hits the fan

The magic in lazy end-of-year holidays - for me, at least - is in the simple deliciousness of being bone idle. Alarm clocks that are strictly verboten allowing for late lie-ins, scrumptious brunches and cat naps afterwards with your favourite read left half open on your happily bloated stomach.

But I have never quite been able to divorce myself entirely from what is happening around me. Newspapers are a must, as is catching up on the plethora of thriller movies I’ve spent the year meticulously recording.

What never takes a holiday are the inevitable crises that beset our troubled world, from overwhelming natural disasters to the unspeakably terrible road death toll figures, and the poignantly painful stories of people who seem to suffer more the louder the Christmas jingle bells chime.

Then there are the stories of the odd corporate hiccup and inevitable eyebrow-raising statements made – generally too late - by stand-in spokespeople who have never had the pleasure nor the pain of dealing with an interrogative reporter.

The one unfortunate incident that left a rather sour taste in my mouth was when a blind woman was chased out of McDonalds on Christmas Day because she brought her guide dog inside.

Granted the MD of the burger chain didn’t take too long to offer his grovelling apologies,pointing out that the incident took place over a busy period – but hastily adding that this served as no excuse.  But clearly a worker had not been coached on why singing from the same hymn sheet as her boss is generally a good idea.

No sooner had Sanet Gouws, her mother Tienkels, and her sister, Susan Botes, sat down and ordered milkshakes at an outlet in Mayville, Pretoria, with Sanet’s two-year-old black Labrador sitting patiently to one side, when a worker became “fidgety.”

According to the family, the worker said it was against the chain’s policy to allow dogs in the restaurant and became less interested the more the blind woman explained that Grover was a guide dog.

Apparently the special harness that the guide dog had been wearing oddly didn’t provide any clues...

At some stage, a media crisis is inevitable in the life of most organisations which is why reputation management and mitigating the potential of negative publicity prior to it hitting crisis mode are fundamental strategies that all companies should have in place.

The steps and processes involved are simple and logical, yet companies still fail to manage media communications in troubled times, with the result that they come out looking far worse than they should have.