“Peoples” rant
7 05 2008I have come to the conclusion that there are a great and many varied personalities on this planet. No doubt you are thinking “that Jeremy, he’s a quick one,” and you are correct, but the truth is that very few of these personalities are ones that make any sense to me. Let me give you a couple of examples:
I am willing to bet that at some point you have come into contact with the people who talk. These people are all around us, and make up a vast proportion of the peoples that I can’t really abide for very long. Odds are you have a friend like this that you only kind of put up with. I am talking, of course, about the type of people who do not partake in conversation.
They own it.
These are the people that do not contribute meaningfully toward any type of mutual communication, opting instead to simply wait until you are done with WHATEVER you are talking about, then blurt out the thing that they were/are/going to be thinking about. This can be either their part of the conversation you are having, disjointed and out of turn in the shared stream of consciousness, or something that has nothing to do with your subject matter; instead moving on to whatever this rather obtuse individual had pop into their head while they were paying no attention to you.
Now being a bit of a conversationalist myself, I believe that in order to have said conversation both sides must be actually listening to each other and playing off of each other’s ideas. Call me old fashioned, but a conversation should be a two-sided thing. When it is not, it is called a lecture or a speech, and it is so annoying that it makes me want to stab myself in the neck just to have a reason to recuse myself from the situation.
Another person is one known very well to those of us in the service industry. These people are the bane of any barista’s existence, and many of the food-servers out there as well. These are the people who have turned my job, which I used to love so very much, into a daily ordeal consisting of barely repressed rage and deeply buried homicidal imaginings. Indeed, these people are the subject of a great many sneering and exasperated looks and are subject to the full brunt of wit that they can not understand is directed at them, but makes me feel morally and intellectually superior (thus makes me giggle). These are the entitlementists.
I know, I know; this word does not really exist. Well it does now, as I have the power to summon forth from the ether collections of letters that make perfect sense when taken in context. Unfortunately, these people are very real, and are a very real threat to my sanity.
These are the people who, through some combination of money, privileged upbringing. social retardation or the lack of a swift kick in the skull, feel that they have some sense of entitlement to the labor of another based upon a paltry sum payed to a business for the constrained actions of its employees.
Yes, you may purchase that meal.
No, that does not allow you to assume that I will be going out of my way in any way, shape, or form in order to meet your needs.
The belief amongst these people is that paying for a good or service entitles them to forgo the normal morals and common sense behavioral rules of civilized society, allowing them to degenerate to the level of common swine: discarding refuse, creating unholy messes and basically stinking up the place with their fundamental lack of concern for the repercussions of their actions.
These people are also the most likely to end up with a burned-down house in the event of a psychotic break suffered by one of the disenfranchised laborers whom they have wronged through their egregious disregard for social more.
These are but a couple of the peoples that inhabit the world which I navigate every day. I am sure that they are familiar to you. If not, be on the lookout, for they are residing in a bar/restaurants/coffee house near you, waiting to foist their superiority complex on the unsuspecting populace of their local watering hole/social gathering place.
Have you run across other people you would like to vent about? Leave me a comment and let me know! (see that? Audience participation.)
oh jeremy, i LOVE how you always seem to hit the nail right on the head…i agree with you on both such people…people who rule conversations are annoying and are especially not very fun to drink with as when they do drink, the lack of conversational respect and caring about anyone other than themselves seems to expand to a level that pretty much suffocates anyone in the room…steals their breath so they can’t even TRY to talk.
as for the entitlementists, which btw is an EXCELLENT new word that i intend on using often…in the legal field we have a version of this person….they are the people who believe they should receive FREE service. not because they are important or anything of the sort, but that, apparently, i, personally, don’t deserve to be paid fully for all my hard work and putting up with my boss and other people, including them, all day. oh how i beg to differ! NO ONE is entitled to free service, especially when you have hired a tiny firm that does not have the financial backing of 25 partners! also, when you hire us, and the court system, which is obviously seriously flawed (and anyone who doesn’t know such a thing has been living under a rock for over 100 years), decides against you, it does not give you the right to blame me and my hard work and decide that i, suddenly, am not worth getting paid for all the past work that was put in for YOUR case. i would definitely put these people in your entitlementists category, jeremy, though i am sure that you could come up with an even better name for them.
OOOO, i just thought of another one! the “we had one conversation, therefore we are friends” people.
yes, you and i met at a bar with our other groups of friends. yes, you and i had a drink together and made small talk about what we do and the people we know. yes, we had an enjoyable time. that does NOT mean that i am your best friend. messaging constantly about life and love and this and that and asking when we will hang out again.
look, if you hung out with someone, had a good time, messaged or texted or called them once…and got a lackluster or even NO response from them…MOVE ON. there are other fishies in the sea to have as friends. tons even.
that didn’t sound bitter, did it?
Entitlementists are my favorite. When I was working as a waitress, I thought I had seen it all (especially the male polygymists construction workers and their sexist divinity- but that is a story for another time). However, when I worked for WSU’s Parking, I met them AND their parents. Some of that faith and patience has been recovered, but now I have discovered in the new job- the Charlatan.
The government is full of them. At least the rung runners in private industry does not hide it’s nature under the guise of doing “public good with public money”. But the Charlatans I find most despicable are the ones who are so busy lapping the asses of their bosses in order to worm their way into the boss chair, that they forget to excuse themselves for their bad manners. These guys are worse than run of the mill liars, they are malicious. They aim high, take all the credit for a job well done, or disappear when the project falls apart. They submit the folk at the bottom, the vital gear of the whole system, to the ridicule and face slapping if the project the Charlatan generated falls apart. If ambition makes them snakes, the constant sweat of job protectionism makes them leeches. The funny part about charlatans is that they do not play well with others, yet those others are usually in higher positions of power. The game doesn’t end, and the climb to the top means the seats are fewer and far between to salivate over.
It is sad to see them operate. We are the third party and not entirely subjected to the headquarters of such and such agency’s mutual fucking itself senseless while devouring itself whole. That is for the underlings of the empire to watch. Too bad the “underlings” are good people and make the job fun.
Working adjacent to the government sector has shown me a variety of personality types, however my personal favorite is known as Eschaton imminentus, or those who believe that the end of the world is upon us. Let me clarify that last statement, not the end of our world, the end of their world. To this kind of person, everything is falling apart and none of it is their responsibility. The cause and consequences rest solely on the shoulders of those within eyesight and earshot. You will often observe this in middle management positions and those who reap some manner of pleasure from constantly living in a state of self-absorbed, self-created destruction.
i hate all people. except my friends, does that count??
i’d type more but i am typing with one hand… am some things are better left unsaid right now
“To this kind of person, everything is falling apart and none of it is their responsibility.”
I KNOW that person!!!!!