The Other

This week is going noticeably better than last, even though I’m getting slammed with criticism at work. For some reason, I’m totally down with it…being a duck, as my mom would say….letting it just roll off of my back. I think it’s because I discovered something about people.--specifically sales people. They are an entirely different breed of person. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, if we didn’t have sales people to sell our products, most of us other types wouldn’t have jobs.

Thing is, though, they are a bunch of freaks. I mean that in the most endearing way possible. They are complete and utter weirdoes in my estimation. Their approach to nearly every human interaction baffles me. The competitive natures bleed across everything they touch. Their hierarchical fruitcakiness is astounding. They are diabolical.

And then they smile at you and you come to realize that their aggression and complaints and general malfeasance isn’t about you at all. In fact, while they are smiling at you, they are looking past you, toward their next conquest and, by extension, the berating, back-stabbing, whining, and all around judgmentalness isn’t about you either. It’s about them. And so, all you can take from it is what it is…they are people completely other than you in a way that will keep you in separate pools of reality for all of time. --That the respect for discourse that I share with the vast majority of the populous is simply not shared by them.--That communication ceases to be about give and take and opportunities to learn, but becomes an ordering of goals and a means toward an end of self-satisfaction. And that’s mostly cool with me. Why should they be like me anyway?

Nutty, nutty fruitloops.