Posts tagged with "social commentary"

Former Or Latter

I final­ly have some time to catch up on my blogroll. The hia­tus has giv­en me a fresh per­spec­tive on the blogs that I read, and I’m start­ing to under­stand why I actu­al­ly read them in the first place. Most authors are just plain inter­est­ing, and their blogs offer a glimpse into the lives of peo­ple with dis­tinct per­son­al­i­ties. The most inter­est­ing ones are by intel­li­gent peo­ple with lifestyles I’ve nev­er been through. However, there’s a fair share of authors whose lives are so sad that they’re amus­ing, and their blogs are so pathet­ic that they’re humor­ous. These are the peo­ple who write because they think they’re impor­tant, and fill their entries with the most trite, sequa­cious crap.

And it’s made me won­der, espe­cial­ly after hav­ing reached an aver­age of 200 dai­ly vis­its last month, which of the two types this blog fits into for oth­er peo­ple when they read.

Seeing Through

I hate how trans­par­ent peo­ple can be. Let me guess…you want to impress this girl, you want to talk about your­self, you want some of my fries, you think that girl has a nice ass, you love your rep­u­ta­tion as a char­ac­ter, you want me to lis­ten to this song.

I only con­sid­er it trans­par­ent when these peo­ple nev­er actu­al­ly say what they think or what. It’s not like they begin with, “I only act this way around you cause I want in your pants”, or “I don’t real­ly care about you but I’ll let you speak first so I can have my turn lat­er”, or “I want some of your fries so I keep ask­ing about how good they are so you’ll offer me some”, or “You’re hot so I’m going to stare”, or “I want a crazy rep­u­ta­tion so I’m going to act crazy”, or “I want to be the one who intro­duced you to this song”.

I’ve been told that I’m very trans­par­ent when it comes to peo­ple I don’t like, and hope­ful­ly that’s the only case for me. I gen­er­al­ly won’t go around telling peo­ple that I hate them, but I’d rather some­one know than not know. That way they won’t waste their time with me and I won’t waste my time with them.

Things would cer­tain­ly be a lot bet­ter that way.

Not Here To Eat Or Read

Ever see those guys sit­ting alone in the pubs, with the same burg­er and fries, the same worn paper­back, the same pint in pil­sner? I have yet to see one of them who was­n’t creepy. It’s some­thing I can’t quite put my fin­ger on, but there’s a cer­tain qual­i­ty that just screams out, “NOT HERE TO EAT OR READ”. Maybe it’s giv­en away in tint of their beards, the scraps of food stuck to their faces, or the sort of laid-back, eyes-over-the-glass­es atti­tude.

How To Stop Talking

I come across so many peo­ple who love to talk about them­selves, their life sto­ries, what they saw on TV the oth­er day, how nice their man­i­cures are…every sin­gle bor­ing thing pos­si­ble. Half the time it’s just vent­ing, get­ting out what piss­es them off or what unfor­tu­nate stroke of luck befell them. Sometimes, I feel like telling these peo­ple about how easy it is to have a blog. That way, they can still get things off their chest, and save me the time of hav­ing to lis­ten to their bor­ing shit. Unless some­one is a friend, I don’t care. What is it about me that makes it seem as if I give a fuck? Why do peo­ple think they’re so impor­tant that any­one would be inter­est­ed in any­thing they have to say? It’s not like I start talk­ing about every lit­tle thing that piss­es me off, because I know that it’s bor­ing and I’m aware that no one cares.

Thank god I have this.

Copier Salesmen

I have to deal with copi­er sales­men from two com­pet­ing com­pa­nies at work. I hon­est­ly nev­er under­stood how one could be pure­ly a sell­er of copiers until they showed up. It’s a huge mar­ket, with lots of busi­ness and a ton of prod­ucts to deal with. They’re both, very obvi­ous­ly, sales­men, and present every­thing with smoke and mir­rors. The thing is, I’m actu­al­ly look­ing to lease a new print­er here, because the com­pa­ny could poten­tial­ly save a few hun­dred dol­lars a month with the new, more aggres­sive mar­ket­ing cam­paign that I’m try­ing to push. It’s a has­sle to have to see through all the bull­shit and sort out the rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion. I’m try­ing to give them both a fair chance any­way, since a new print­er would def­i­nite­ly ben­e­fit the com­pa­ny.

It’s fun­ny to see how they try to han­dle clients my age. They come in with their suits and ties, have these gener­ic sales­per­son char­ac­ters, and talk with lofty words. I don’t think they expect to be deal­ing with some­one my age, who looks and dress­es the way I do. I’m extreme­ly com­fort­able with it though; I com­mu­ni­cate well with peo­ple who are old­er than me, and these guys must be twice my age. They think it’s going to be easy to get a con­tract signed, just by telling me what the com­pa­ny sup­pos­ed­ly needs. I may be green, but I’m not stu­pid when it comes to busi­ness.

The only advan­tage to all of this is being treat­ed like a real client with respect and hav­ing things pre­sent­ed to me the way I want to see them. I sup­pose it’s only fair though, if they’re try­ing to get a 60-month lease signed, with quar­ter­ly pay­ments of over $1000.