Go pound sand. Take a hike. Get lost. Go play in the traffic. Go fly a kite. Go away. Get over it. Too bad. Tough luck. Go jump in a lake. Stick it in your ear. Drop dead. I will leave out the more graphic phrases that express the same basic sentiment.
As an adult, have you ever been told something like this? Have you ever been summarily dismissed by someone when you were trying to engage in a discussion? Or when you were expressing your opinion? Basically when things like this are said, you are being told "get away from me, I have no interest in your opinion or what you have to say."
In my former career, I was involved in doing customer satisfaction surveying. You know... you ask customers to rate your product or service as well as rate their experience dealing with your company. You may also provide a place for customers to comment or make suggestions. Here is something I know. If you have no intention of actually responding to or seriously considering any of the customer's suggestions...then don't ask them. As a customer I would rather you never ask my opinion than asking it then ignoring me. If you do that, you are effectively telling me to "pound sand."
One of the major sticking points regarding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is that a majority of Americans disagree with the way it was passed as well as several parts of the legislation. But, the Democrat Party ignored the wishes of the citizenry. You may recall, prior to the legislation passing, town hall meetings took place across the country on the subject. Many participants were outraged with the way they were ignored or pilloried by their Congressional representatives. This was a classic case of being told "we don't care what you think...we know better...go pound sand."
In the sleepy, southern town of Augusta, Georgia, there are two universities that have been ordered to consolidate by the Georgia University Board of Regents. The Medical College of Georgia (which was recently renamed Georgia Health Sciences University) is being consolidated with Augusta State University (known as Augusta College when I went there.) There will much work to do combining a medical university with a liberal arts university. One of the items needing consideration was what to call the new, consolidated entity. So, a team was put together to consider possible names for the new school. Many names were suggested and that list of names was pared down a few times until there was a manageable number of potential monikers. Some of the names that were considered were quite interesting, even if they were a bit unappealing.
There was even an in-state and national survey done (at a cost of about $45,000) to get opinions of the names that made it to the short list. Locally, many Augustans wanted the new name to include "Augusta." University of Augusta, Augusta University...hey, even keeping it Augusta State University. In fact, University of Augusta received the highest rating from both the in-state respondents to the survey as well as the national respondents. Guess what? Dr. Azziz, the president of the medical university (who will preside over the consolidated school) apparently isn't impressed with the name of the city in which he currently lives...and also doesn't want it to be a part of the new university's name. So, the Board of Regents (with some purported arm twisting by Dr. Azziz) chose to name the school after itself- Georgia Regents University (a name that finished 4th in the $45,000 survey.)
Hey, survey respondents- go pound sand. Hey, Augusta residents- go pound sand. How does it feel to be totally ignored...your opinion and input essentially disregarded?
Not so good.
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