The Only Game in Town

I asked a buddy of mine recently if he would join me in making a donation at the blood bank. He responded emphatically in the negative: “Why would you make a contribution to a corporation?” He began. “You’re supporting a CEO who wastes money left and right. The head of the blood bank makes more money than you and I put together and he’s an idiot.”

I know better than to interrupt Clyde when he’s making a point, so I let him go on: “The guy has a boat, for goodness sake. Do you have a boat?” With a nod, I admitted that I was fresh out of boats. “He sells your donation for three hundred dollars.”

“Whole blood is three hundred dollars,” I interjected. “I give platelets. Platelets sell for closer to seven hundred dollars.”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Clyde continued. “You’re sitting there with a needle in your arm for two hours so that guy can laze around on his boat? He’s laughing at you.”

“But…”

“I’m not finished,” Clyde said. “Did you know that four years ago, the Red Cross was fined over four million dollars? They violated blood safety laws. Four million dollars. It was an incredible mess up. And you want to support this organization? You want to help make money for this guy so he can go out on his boat? Why don’t you just send him $700 directly? There would be less stress and bother involved and you wouldn’t have to have a needle in your arm for two hours. Instead of lying there at the blood bank watching bad movies and eating stale cookies, why don’t you just give him cash? That way he can pay his four million dollar fine and get some caviar for the next time he goes out on his boat.”

Before I could respond, we were joined by Sarah, another friend from the neighborhood. “You think that blood bank guy is an idiot?” She began. “You want a real idiot? Let me tell you about the King of the Idiots. My son’s sixth grade teacher is a complete and utter idiot,”

“What’s the latest?” Clyde asked.

“The man doesn’t even have an actual teaching certificate. He has no classroom management skills; the kids are acting out all the time. It’s impossible to learn in that classroom. There are close to 40 other kids.”

Sarah went on: “You know how my son, Johnny, sometimes turns in his assignments late because he’s up half the night playing video games?”

Clyde and I both nodded.

“Well then, get this: His idiot teacher lowered his grade on the assignment yesterday. Just because he turned it in late. Can you believe it? I mean, what difference does it make if the assignment is a few days late? The purpose of homework is for the kids to learn the material, right? What does it matter if my son is 13 years-old or 13 years and one day old when he learns this stuff? And the assignment is so stupid anyway. I don’t know why anyone would be expected to know this.”

Sarah turned to Clyde. “I mean, do you know anything about the Constitution of the United States? I certainly don’t. Who cares? It’s from like five hundred years ago. What difference does it make what happened in 1066?”

Clyde started to interrupt, but Sarah continued. “So I told my son what an idiot his teacher is. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. But I thought he had a right to know. What do you think?”

***

Here’s what I think: There’s a six year-old in Chicago with leukemia. And a nine year-old in Des Moines with aplastic anemia. And a 13 year-old in Baltimore with cancer. They need platelets. Otherwise their quality of life is going to be bad. And then they’re going to die.

In a perfect world, I would donate platelets to these kids directly. (I’m going to ignore for a minute the issue of just where I would get a $250,000 aphaeresis machine to process the platelets and a hematologist to put the needle in my arm.) I would cut out the middle man CEO with his huge salary and his boat. In the real world, I can’t get the platelets to these kids without the infrastructure–including all the waste–at the blood bank.

In a perfect world, Johnny’s teacher would have better classroom management skills and there would be 20 students in his class rather than 40. In a perfect world, Sarah would acknowledge that there is something to be said for standing up and accepting that kids need to do the best they can in the situations in which they are.

Sarah’s best parenting strategy is to help her son understand that his classroom situation may not be perfect, but that he has to learn anyway. He needs to know that 1066, 1492, and 1776 are not adjoining rooms at a poorly designed hotel. Johnny’s teacher may well be an idiot. But years down the road, “My teacher was an idiot” is going to be an inadequate answer when information and ability are being assessed.

Doubtless, there is a better way. And good people like you and me are fighting every day to decrease waste at the blood bank, to decrease class size, to educate parents about how to help their kids do the best they can with what they’ve got. In the meantime, I’ll keep going to the blood bank if you’ll keep helping your kids make their way in an imperfect world.