Up Front: Your Whining Is Important to Us
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when I applied for a job at the Fight Centre I was somewhat saddened to realise that they thought the job was about sales
Aheheheheheheheheh.
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First rule of Fight Centre..
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Years ago when I applied for a job at the Fight Centre
do their prices take a beating?
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They sell the full reflex experience in association with their better-known partner organisation
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You know their slogan is Unbeatable aye? No, seriously, take a look.
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VIP travel seems to be more customer focused
So I'm guessing then that VIP is
Violence in Person much posher
sounding than Fight Centre indeed ;- )all right that's enough Chuck P chuckles
(or numbchuckles for the nunchaku set)
I'm sure Dinah will be happy to see this
become a receding airline joke :- ) -
Seeing as the book in question was all about social networking (in Oldspeak: using other people) for personal gain, I think your interpretation is optimistic.
Oh, I thought you said it was a Self Help book
not a Help Yourself book... ;- )
still that's me, optimistic and idealistically naive...
Like I think sales and advertising is about only
selling something good and useful and
being honest about it... -
Yes, you don't have to be evil to be in sales. But it might help.
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I serviced a customer once.
If you know what I mean.
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these days I'd be terrified that if I punched someone to the ground they might hit their head and die.
That's what sets us apart from the average munter Ben. We have the dubious advantage of imagining consequences, including but not limited to, understanding that, even if we win, escalation and revenge can lead to a long lasting world of pain.
followed up by me hugging him and telling him I was really, really sorry, which he meekly accepted. I was never bullied again.
I did exactly that myself while at school, mainly because of the aforementioned reasons.
I have a glass desk and have an unnatural fear of slipping off my chair and smashing my teeth on the edge of said desk.
I believe this may have something to do with elevated levels of Mono Amine Oxidase, something that adventurous types lack. It could be that violent types also lack this defensive trait and hence fail to see the consequences of their actions. -
Yes, you don't have to be evil to be in sales. But it might help.
Really? Every Christmas, I rediscover my admiration for retail wage slaves who put up with fuck-tarded entitleitis that would have me dishing out pimp-slaps like confetti at a wedding.
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You're not a real salesperson if you're a wage-slave. It's the commissions that inject the tincture of sulphur.
dishing out pimp-slaps like confetti at a wedding
I'm trying to visualize how Pixar could bring that to me in 3D.
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A salesperson in the organisation I work for won the contract for a local hobbyist pilot's club. Unfortunately, he struggled with "l" sounds (hearing and pronouncing) and part of the sale was for us to arrange the company's directory listing, so for the next year the customer had to put up with confused phonecalls from people wanting to join the Horowhenua* Fight Club.
And yes, he was evil enough to claim a handy little commission for that sale.
*-town changed to protect the innocent.
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On being an introvert – and faking the extrovert (Part One) blog post
Great blog, webweaver. I too said yes to all the criteria of being introverted. I'm always telling people I'm shy, and no-one ever believes me. I really hate big crowds, and I'm only ever comfortable with people I know. That isn't to say that I can't get out there and meet new people. It just takes a lot of effort, which I am willing to put in on most occasions. People get away with a lot, though, by being "shy" though. Annoys the shit out of me. If I make an effort, why can't they? Harrumph.
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Do you find you notice it in your students?
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I have a glass desk and have an unnatural fear of slipping off my chair and smashing my teeth on the edge of said desk.
I believe this may have something to do with elevated levels of Mono Amine Oxidase, something that adventurous types lackDoes this make you (in precis) Chairman MAO?
I would be worried about that Great Leap Forward then... -
You're not a real salesperson if you're a wage-slave. It's the commissions that inject the tincture of sulphur.
I once worked as a door-to-door salesperson on 0% wage and 100% commission. I needed the money in order to do trivial things like feed myself and have somewhere to sleep at night, and it was more or less the only job I could find, being young and stupid.
Although I eventually realised my employer was running an evil cult with himself at the head of an enormous pyramid scheme, my six months there did at least cauterise all fear of public speaking out of me. I've never really had a problem with giving speeches or presentations since.
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Does this make you (in precis) Chairman MAO?
Don't even ask what it makes him if he cracks up afterwards
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That's what sets us apart from the average munter Ben. We have the dubious advantage of imagining consequences, including but not limited to, understanding that, even if we win, escalation and revenge can lead to a long lasting world of pain.
I wouldn't credit myself with such wisdom as a 14 year old. It was actually a feeling of genuine empathy that made me hug him. But as an adult, it makes sense not to court violence, it's both wrong, and incredibly unpredictable.
Who knows what corner or floor someone might accidentally die on? What apparently weak aggressor might turn out to be carrying a weapon, what slippery spot on the floor or unexpected king hit might end you? Which way the witnesses might see things, that cast you as a brutal aggressor? What actual mistakes you might really make, and harm someone who didn't really deserve it, who was acting tough because of too much booze? Or turns out to be someone with authority, or powerful or dangerous friends?
I remember seeing a brawl in Australia that looked totally one-sided - a bunch of gangsterish looking white guys chasing an Asian guy up the street. One of them managed to trip him, and then punched the kneeling Asian fully in the face, bowling him over backwards. I was just about to intervene (jesuz I'm glad I didn't), when the Asian guy sprang up with a knife and slashed at his attacker. He then brandished the knife at the group of about 6 guys who had surrounded him, and slowly backed into a nearby shop. The guy he slashed was bleeding a little from his neck, right over the carotid artery. One inch deeper and he could have died. It wouldn't have mattered one bit that there were 6 of them, or that the Asian guy was pretty small and weedy looking.
The Asian guy was taken away in handcuffs by the Police. The white guys melted into the crowd, all except the guy who got cut, who stood there yelling at them for being cowards, and loudly complaining to the Police about what had happened. The Police were not interested in my account at all.
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Webweaver, have you ever tried the Myer-Briggs personality test? I was put through it as a part of management training when I was in Australia. Extroversion/introversion is one of the dimensions measured, and does track a lot of your takes on the matter. I came out as an INTP. I had not expected to be judged as quite so introverted, given that I had been a captain of a school team, a university debating champ, a front person for a large software project, and was then managing a team of 20. I guess the required extroversion was learn-able.
The personality analysis was rather useful, if only in understanding that there isn't one 'ideal' personality type, and also that some types may clash with others for reasons that are really differences in style.
Interestingly, my wife is diametrically the opposite, an ESFJ. Without people she becomes depressed. We had an enormous party for my son's birthday yesterday, and she was totally in her element, really working the party, flitting around like a social butterfly. I worked it in my own way, one person at a time, using my bar-person duty as an excuse to target those who seemed not to be enjoying themselves to have a decent chat, and then introduce them to someone else nearby. Afterward, I needed to sit down and do nothing but read for about an hour, whereas my wife was still on cloud 9 for hours.
Like Emma, I feel drained by people, but I also felt strangely satisfied after that party too, as though the sucking of that energy had just strengthened something in me that had been wilting unnoticed.
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I wouldn't credit myself with such wisdom as a 14 year old. It was actually a feeling of genuine empathy that made me hug him.
But Ben... that empathy is wisdom. It's that old wisdom that gives us Humanity, that feeling of connectedness. It is disconnection that is, I believe, the root of all social ills, "Othering" rejection, physical and emotional abuse, dispossession by a non caring society.
A society consisting of people that care only for themselves is no society at all but a lot cheaper. Thank you ACT Party. -
But Ben... that empathy is wisdom.
I guess so. It was certainly wise - I found out afterward that my post-fight actions were what saved me from a pack beating. They all felt strangely humbled.
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On a lighter note and still thinking about the ACT Party.
Nazis tried to infiltrate boy scouts
Of course, being the herald they only reported the salacious parts of the file released at the National Archives in Kew, whereas The Independent came up with some MI5 gossip on the irascible Brendan Behan and someone called Sophie. -
@BenWilson - yup I've done Myers-Briggs - I do it every few years when it occurs to me to do it - and I've gotten pretty much the same reading each time.
I'm a borderline ISFJ/INFJ. I've got strong I (Introvert) and J (Judging) characteristics, somewhat strong F (Feeling) characteristics, and I seem to hover just on the side of S (Sensing) (which means I also exhibit lots of N (iNtuition) characteristics too).
We got quite into Myers-Briggs in an online forum I was in a few years ago. A whole lot of us took the test and we tallied up the percentages of each type. I remember that my type(s) - which aren't especially common (but not totally rare either) - came up at a higher percentage in our forum than is indicated in the general population. This happened with quite a few types - and some others were much lower than in the gen pop.
It seems very likely to me that certain types will appear more often in online communities than others - I would hazard a wild guess that there's a higher percentage of introverts on PAS than in the general community, for example...
@Jackie - glad you liked the blog post!
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Bit of a cliché ('a bit?'), but true to form. Either that, or working the BBQ. Friends think I love cooking on BBQs, as it doesn't matter whose party it is, I'll casually take over. Or is that just because I'm a control freak?
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