Paul's Internet Landfill/ 2017/ An Excuse for Every Season

An Excuse for Every Season

Say you have a presentation and few people show up. Thanks to the weather you can always justify the non-attendance.

If the weather is cold you say that the weather was too cold, and people stayed home.

If the weather is warm and summery you say that the weather is too nice, and people stayed outside.

If the weather is rainy you say that the weather was too wet, and people did not want to go outside to see your presentation.

If the weather is too snowy you say that there was too much snow and transportation was dangerous.

There are analogous excuses you can use based upon the time of day the event occurs (morning, afternoon, evening).

Once in a while (eg blizzards) weather-based excuses are convincing. (Note that the event is often cancelled in this case, so excuses become unnecessary.) Usually they are rationalizations. The weather always provides an explanation for why people stayed home. But if your presentation was compelling enough people would have prioritized your event over the weather. So this explanation is not really convincing.

Instead of making excuses we ought to try and figure out what is wrong, and then put in the work to improve attendance at the next event. Or you be like me and give up, resigned to whatever terrible attendance I get.