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DURING A HEATED discussion, the chairman at my old employer grew exasperated with me. “Rules are meant for other people, not me,” he snapped.
I had no idea how prevalent that attitude was—until recently. It seems some hospitals and drug companies also feel that the rules don’t apply to them.
There have been articles in The Wall Street JournaI about a new rule that went into effect requiring hospitals to show how much they charge for procedures. Many have chosen to ignore the rule, while others have complied, but made it next to impossible to find the information on their website.
Similarly, in what Chemical and Engineering News calls “an unprecedented action,” Acceleron Pharma has decided that the rules for clinical trials don’t apply to the company. Its results from a trial are overdue by three years and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is threatening fines.
What’s going on here? It seems more and more people are deciding the rules don’t apply to them. What if we all started behaving that way?
In our community, one third of dog owners ignore the leash law and fail to clean up after their animals. In Game Theory, these folks are called defaulters and their existence is what makes it hard to solve society’s problems.
Last winter, for multiple days in a row, a dog was using the sidewalk outside my home as a bathroom. I bought a box of chalk and, in huge letters, wrote on the sidewalk, “CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR DOG.” Haven’t had a problem since.
I once saw a house that had a picture (presumably from a security camera) printed on a large yard sign of a dog doing its business while the owner looks on and in big letters: “Do NOT LET YOUR DOG POOP IN MY YARD”
I imagine that dog owner seeing the sign and being immensely embarrassed.
I’m afraid that is nothing new. Many people and organizations have always been like that. The government is no exception. States fail to fund their pension plans as required, the Medicare trustees fail to meet legal deadlines for their reports due April 2, the IRS ignores deadlines. No surprises here.