AND NOW, IN THE “ANY PUBLICITY IS GOOD PUBLICITY” DEPARTMENT….
In which the DLA Research staff feels unappreciated and misunderstood, but learns a valuable lesson about the power of printed word!
Things got a little heated last week here at the DrivingLikeAss Labs following the publication of Pete DeMarco’s otherwise laudatory column, Who Taught YOU to Drive? ,in the March 30 Boston Globe. The research staff grumbled through DeMarco’s description of their efforts to bring academic rigor to the study of Boston driving behavior as “tongue-in-cheek” and “under the guise of.” They were even willing to let the “you might actually believe them” crack slip. But what really got them steamed were the quotes attributed to DLA’s spokesperson, Jonathan Dower, in which he took single-handed and unabashed credit for everything from DLA’s inception and mission to the actual research itself.
“It’s bad enough that he makes himself look like the DLA braintrust,,” crabbed one researcher, “but you woulda thought he could throw the real workers a bone….you know, like mentioning the hours we spend doing exit interviews at the RMV, which, by the way, he made us do on our lunch breaks!”
Other staff piled on: “Calling himself a technology market researcher? The only market he’s been anywhere near lately was Costco when they had that Rogaine sale. And as far as technology goes, he couldn’t tell a protocol from a Pitman Arm.”
“Or a slave cylinder from a Sloan valve,” said another, starting to get into it. “Technology? My patoot! Sometimes when things are slow around here, we tell him there was a network problem and he will have to re-boot, and then we all chuckle when he starts looking at his shoes!”
“But, boy…that DeMarco hack sure got the pontificating thing right! You don’t want to be stuck next to him at the Newtowne Grill after he’s had a few Old Mr. Boston’s,” offered DLA’s recently hired psychometrician.
At that, the research staffers drifted back to their screens to tabulate recently collected data, search online libraries for new findings, and organize a new World of Warcraft raid. But they all had to allow that, despite DeMarco’s misrepresentation of DLA’s work as “complete parody”, they enjoyed his discussion of other driving sites, especially the Acme License Maker which kept several of them busy for most of the afternoon, giggling at their own cleverness (A2BRUTA, IPDAYLEE, and such.)
And someone noted that the DLA site’s traffic log for Sunday recorded 42 unique hits, not counting the usual queries looking for something else with “ass” in the title.
“Hmmm,” she said. “42…not bad!"
JWD
in Police details, traffic safety, MassCop, Boston Globe, Peter Demarco, Who taught you to drive?
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