I didn’t even consider how many people with cardiac issues must be looking at that screen.

I mean if I have one I’ll bet grateful if it kills me, but then again I take seven pills a day to stop myself from dramatically accelerating the process.

this would unironically make me feel like I succeeded

I can’t imagine getting worked up about it either, but then the whole mildly infuriating deliberate oxymoron turn of phrase is that it’s something that should only really be a little annoying but which nonetheless is really quite annoying. It’s a type of silent frustration where you feel it, but you don’t really express it or visibly react.

In terms of what should they have put on these screens? If they felt they absolutely had to do this or really thought it might help make people’s situations feel even a modicum of improvement, then the glib messages could maybe have focussed on something other than gratitude as their common theme. It hardly seems like the appropriate time to bring that up. By their nature, any cheesy and overly broad phrase is probably going to have a sadly ironic and patronising tone to it in the circumstances but maybe something like “hang in there” or just about anything except what they went with has got to better.

It’s Friday today