Impression Management



I am an artist and a poet. I know how to manage impressions. I have also, in my somewhat checkered career, worked in advertising as a copy writer, been a free lance writer, a theatrical set and costume designer, and acted. You could say I have an advanced degree in impression management. But I seek to be very honest and up front in my personal life. Poetry, not so much.

And while I am at times a real sucker for the narcissistic personality disorder in friends (more and more briefly friends) I am also really good at spotting bullshit. I am sure I could have put that more poetically.  There is currently a lot of impression management going on in my little town. And today that means you take it to the ethernet. Let me say that just because it was posted on Facebook does not make it gospel. It does not even have to make it close to the truth.

Generally I just read these little mini-dramas and not like or comment. FB does not have a button for Liar or even Dislike so not liking and not commenting is the coward's way out of the fray. But I am rather upset about one that just hit our community because it tarred and feathered without proof an individual I know but it also painted with the same brush our volunteer firemen. Rule one on Impression Management: Do not paint false impressions of others to make yourself look good. Rule two on Impression Management: Leave the innocent and others not directly involved OUT OF IT.

I have lived in Black Lake for twenty years now. I have nothing but good to say about the citizens here who volunteer for the fire department. If I was thirty years younger I would volunteer too. Our tax base is about 1400 and yet during the height of tourist seasons the fire department and paramedics take care of 10,000 visitors doing dangerous things they are not in good physical shape for, and with professionalism and compassion. In the past years of drought they have been our first line of defense against our surrounding forest when on fire.

It is totally wrong to blacken their reputation with an oblique reference in a totally unproven and unsubstantiated story on public media.

That is my impression of this entire incident.



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