Urban legends have always fascinated me, and as a business owner, you suffer the consequences quite regularly. I see that Arthur Goldstuck has come out with another book, as he has had a number of these, on more urban legends. It was quite fascinating to hear him discuss on 702, the tornado that was going to wipe out Johannesburg last year. I had some of my more sensible staff begging to be allowed to go home early, so that they could avoid this tornado and essentially all that had happened is a lady working at a medical supply company took a weather warning of extreme conditions, which most heavy thunderstorms are, put it together with a recent tornado that had taken place quite innocently, and sent out an SMS to her friend which soon morphed into an e-mail that was spread around Johannesburg. 

Arthur said one of the problems at that time was that the Weather Bureau, instead of flatly denying that a tornado was going to take place, had a cautious spokesperson on, who said it was highly unlikely. Obviously, when people want to hear whatever makes the story sounds good, “highly unlikely” is not the same as “not at all” and that was that – we had everyone fleeing from the offices!

Another category, similar to Urban Legends, but not exactly the same thing, would be the frequent e-mails that go out about filling up your petrol now, because a strike is about to take place and you will not get to put petrol in your car for a week or two, when actual facts and circumstances are exaggerated, out of all proportion, to the reality. At that time, everyone suddenly assumes that the Union is all powerful and there simply will not be a single person working at a petrol station and no petrol being pumped whereas the reality, of a little more than a month ago, was that it took no longer to get your petrol at the petrol station than it had before and maybe it was quicker – because so many people took the threat seriously and went and filled up their cars they day before.