Cristiano

Chris Kelly: Karen Klein Should Give the Money Back

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Surreal

There is a kernal of truth in his point, but it's not about the bus monitor. It's about the school system that hired a warm body instead of providing someone with the authority and skills to effectively stop the kids.

Cristiano

It is such a fine line now. Any steps she would have taken to stop the kids could have been used against her by the overly litigious assholes who are producing these types of monstrous kids in the first place. If this had been the kids tormenting another child and she failed to intervene, I would agree. I don't think she failed as a bus monitor, I think she handled herself with grace in a very difficult and cruel situation.

Void

I agree with the thread title.

even more than just the limits of her job that Cris brings up, if we're going to place responsibility for any perceived lack of performance on her part, then it belong squarely on the shoulders of the people that hired her, since they set the both the standards for what she is and is not allowed to do, and the qualifications for the job.

but at the end of the day, she did the job she was hired to do... the kids arrived safely where and when they were supposed to... even the evil little brats among them. I'm not sure the same would have happened if I had been in her shoes, so she has my admiration for a job well done.

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Wrong Weatherwax

This seems suspiciously like the article someone writes when they say, "We really need to up our site visitors, even if they are just pissed off at us." I agree with you Cris, I don't believe that there is a single thing this woman could have done within the meager amount of authority given to her to stop the children.

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Han Held

IOW the jerkwad is trolling for ad impressions.

Fuck him.

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Beebo Brink

She didn't ask for this money, it was freely given by other people who felt the actions of those children was cruel and disgusting. This was as much a protest against their sense of entitlement as it was a gesture of help. God knows a lot of people could use some help and a fund for early retirement; I don't begrudge her this windfall one bit.

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Willow Matthews

Exactly.

Go retire lady bus monitor and take your friends and or family on a nice little holiday break before you do so.

Just telling my teenage kid and his mate Jacob about this story. First thing they asked was why didn't some kid with balls tell them to shut the F up and stop acting like total wack jobs.

Then Jacob said, wow, I would have given her money too. Adam agreed.

They both said that none of their friends would have started something like that let alone participated.

Makes me think that as long as you bring kids up with a sense of right and wrong about how they would like to be treated and therefore treat others the same way, then they might be more likely to make the idiot that starts something like this feel that he is the outsider and learn something from that experience.

Peer pressure works in good ways as well.

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bladyblue

There is no way to effectively 'stop' 30 kids on a bus without crashing or pulling over and staring at them angrily for 20 minutes. The bus company just wants the drivers to get the kids home on time and fulfill the contract.

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Jopsy Pendragon

You need a very thick hide dealing with middle-schoolers if you have no power or real authority over them.

I agree that she was either ill-prepared or didn't know what she was getting into. But should she give her salary back to the school? Just because she 'failed to maintain order' one time on the bus and as a result she 'won the internet sympathy lottery'? Pshaw. Hell no. She was doing the job she was paid for, even if she could have handled the situation more professionally.

Her feelings aside, the next worst part of this whole mess is now we're going to have a new rash of copy-cats trying to duplicate her windfall for themselves, and a lot of gullible people are likely to fall for them.

Walker

I thought this thread was going to be about Gawker. Adrien Chen wrote an article with the same message on Friday.

Don't Take That Money, Bullied Bus Lady

Gawker is probably trolling for hits more than HuffPo though after a commenting system overhaul which alienated much of its established userbase.

Joshua Nightshade

Gawker (and Adrien Chen) both suck though.

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Walker

I know. I'm not sure who Chris Kelly is, but I feel similarly about HuffPo. The UK version is often as sensational and ridiculous as the Daily Mail anyway. Not sure about the US version.

But I digress.... as usual.