You can't actually blame this one on the media. A mine foreman was in the room where the families were waiting, and he got a call from mine authorities that 11 people were alive.

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Here's the kicker: HALF AN HOUR LATER the mine officials knew the report was wrong. They waited three hours to tell the families.

It ain't the press that did the families down.

dang.

Those findings jibe with what I've seen. I can't think of any friend who refused to date a woman because she made more money than he did. When friends have married women with bigger paychecks, the only financial complaints I've heard from them have come when a wife later decided to pursue a more meaningful -- i.e., less lucrative -- career.

WHATEVER. Men won't admit it, but they don't like it. they just give some sort of bullshit reason that the friends accept, like. "her boobs weren't big enough"

Have a doggie yet?

Not yet but getting closer.

For about 10 years my mom made more than my dad did. (Out of a 40+ year marriage, so this wasn't exactly the norm for them.) Dad joked about being kept, but he also started contributing rather more around the house. It doesn't seem to have hurt their marriage any.

I earn 2x my Beau's salary. This is in no small part due to my being about 8 or so years ahead of him career-wise, despite being 5 years older. We have the same level of education, so I think it is possible we will earn the same salary in the future, but it won't be the near future.

It ain't the press that did the families down.

I don't think the decision was necessarily made out of heartlessness.

It took several hours to tell the families that the good news was all a big mistake, a huge mistake. Hatfield said he waited because he felt his information might be incomplete and he wanted to avoid passing along further misinformation. Some might be dead and others alive, perhaps, he thought.

"I didn't know who to tell to stop celebrating," he said.

You don't need heartlessness when stupidity will suffice.

He could have shared his uncertainty. He could have said "All this rejoicing is premature; we've just been told that some of them are dead. We don't know for sure how many or who."

I don't think the decision was necessarily made out of heartlessness.

No, I think it was made out of cowardice. Sure, he doesn't know which families to tell to stop celebrating. I get that. But he needed to go in there as soon as it was clear that all 12 miners weren't alive and say something to the effect of "I deeply regret that I have to tell you this, but the initial report from the rescue workers was incorrect. There have been some fatalities, but the rescue team is working to determine how many."

Something like that. You don't just let the families walk around with this joy that you *know* you'll have to shatter. Which is why I think it was cowardice -- he didn't want to face the devastated families after destroying the extreme joy they had just been feeling.

It's not easy, but if you're the CEO of a company, you do it. Or you don't deserve to be CEO.

t edit Or, What Betsy Said in WAY fewers words than it took me.

This morning, the CEO kept saying "It got out of control. It just got out of control." As if it wasn't his job to control the release of information. He did control it; he withheld it. His choice. If it got out of control, it was because he let the celebration continue long after he knew it was premature.