Posted on February 14, 2008 by Kathy McManus in All, Altruism, Films Comments (4)
Table Guardians
Being responsible can be life-changing.
Profound.
Noble.
And annoying.
What are we supposed to do when a stranger says “Excuse me, can you…Watch my things? Hold my place? Just wait?—I’ll be back in a minute.”
In Table Guardians, director Adam Goldstein takes a light-hearted look at one of our most familiar daily run-ins with responsibility, where many people are reluctant to say no, but uncomfortable saying yes.
So pull up a chair—if it’s not already taken by the guy who said he’d be right back—and watch as responsibility is served—or not.
For a discussion guide with questions, please click here
Comments (4)
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Difficult
It can very difficult to keep a commitment to a complete stranger. I’m not sure how far I would go.
A Little Risky
I’m not sure I would have passed on the watching duties to another stranger. I think after watching and waiting as long as I could I would have picked up his things and taken them to the copy shop nearby to find the owner. I mean, it is one thing for an individual to decide to entrust a stranger with protecting his valuable property, but passing that responsibility on to another stranger is extending the risk too far for my comfort level. Interestingly, the only irresponsible person in the entire scene was the original young man who stayed away hours longer than he intended!
irresponsible!!
I despise people who are always shifting respnsibilty to others and in this case to a complete stranger. He put her in a very uncomfortable situation. What if she absolutely had to go and couldn’t find someone to watch his laptop? Now she’s going to feel guilty wondering if his stuff was still there when he returned and all because of this guys’ inability to look after his own stuff. I don’t have that much faith in our society to let a stranger watch my stuff for ten minutes and I wouldn’t be selfish enough to ask!
Fortunate
I believe the young man with the laptop was extremely fortunate. In today’s society unfortunately, he would have been hard pressed to find three separate individuals who would have followed through by either refusing to leave without first finding someone else to watch his things, or with the last woman, actually ask for identification before allowing the young man to sit at the table and begin touching the things. I would have bet the first woman would have walked away within 30 minutes…