It was a dark and stormy night. Seriously. Apparently we are in for 4 days of hard core rain and wind and all the joy that comes with it. I woke at 3:00 and followed my routine. Checked the morning papers, scrolled a little social media, tried to go back to sleep and finally got up. Read some Tom Waits lyrics for wisdom and perspective. Then I woke up Marti and made her take an early morning walk with me. If I can’t sleep, nobody sleeps. Well, Brittany does. Nothing wakes her up.
The planet could get overrun by aliens overnight and Brittany would wake up at 8:00, put on her shoes and walk to Starbucks, completely oblivious, until she noticed the barista was ET. I really admire that about her.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about dumb people. There are so many more than I used to think there were. And their ignorance is far more pervasive than I would have thought. If someone is ignorant, you might say they were just never exposed to some fundamental truths — but once they were, they would acknowledge their ignorance and shake it off like a dog after a swim. Alas, that does not seem to be the case with this new breed of dummies. Hard-core, persistent, dogged, stupidity is what has infected our species. In spite of repeated and tenacious encounters with the truth, the ungodly stupid cling tightly to their falsehoods and misplaced beliefs. And we see them everywhere now. It’s hard to get your mind around — how did our species ever climb to the top of this evolutionary cesspool.
I work with a dumb guy. Insecure, emotionally immature, professionally incompetent, and completely lacking the slightest hint of self-awareness. When he first appeared on the scene, we all sort of thought, hmmmmm. Quirky lad. Hadn’t realized the 1940’s ‘Alfalfa’ hair style was back in fashion. And perhaps his incessant, disjointed, rambling, foolish, nonsense was just new job jitters. We tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, as one does. We thought maybe he was trying too hard to impress.
Turns out he was just madly scrambling (unsuccessfully) to cover up his complete lack of qualifications for the role.
A few of us traded some thoughts in the hallway in those early days — assuming he must have some redeeming qualities or he would not have been hired into such a prominent role. But nope, 6 months on, his freak flag is fully unfurled and snapping in the wind. He sent me a couple of foolish emails over the weekend. So crazy that I was paralyzed about how to respond. I finally just forwarded them to the CIO and said ‘I honestly don’t know what to do with this’.
Within a few hours I saw the wheels of justice start to warm up and inch along as the concrete evidence of this lunatic’s ability to sow chaos made its way through the organization. All this guy had to do was pay the slightest bit of attention to the signs everyone was giving him. Take it down a notch buddy. Learn to listen a little instead of hijacking every meeting with hokeypokey, Dilbert’esque, baloney. Focus on your actual job for 5 or 10 minutes a day instead of trying to give everyone else advice. The dude is out of control. Normally I would not care, except now he is infringing on my territory and that boat won’t float in my navy. So there are now a couple of AVP’s assigned to try to mentor this miserable wretch for the next 6 months while they slowly drunk walk him through the HR death march and finally a small severance check and a souvenir coffee cup. And he will be free to go torture some other unfortunate organization with his particular brand of crazy.
I don’t wish people ill. Even this poor dummy. But I have less empathy when their insecurity and dysfunction manifests in petty and malicious behavior. And this guy has steadily become more intrusive and damaging as his confidence has grown — and not from any notion that he is performing well in his role. He is not and no one has been dumb enough to encourage him. But because he is not self-aware or reflective or thoughtful, he is mistaking time in service with apparent success. So he has grown more bold and has started to spread his damage around outside just his little department.
Since he is a manager of people, his dysfunction causes confusion and angst for those reporting to him. I’ve had multiple people from inside and outside his group corner me and basically ask me ‘WTF’? I don’t know what to tell them. I feel for them. But he doesn’t work for me and I have no legitimate authority to bitch slap him out of his chronic mental illness.
He did get one nut neatly clipped off as the management plan started to kick in. I’m not yet sure he fully realizes he’s lost a nut because he is really that dumb. And of course in the kind and gentle world of non-profit management, it was delivered as more of a gentle rebuke than a genuine ‘get the fuck back over on your side of the fence and stay there’ sort of message. But behind the scenes, there is no nuance in the messaging. Your boy is really dumb and how in the hell did he get through the talent and recruitment gauntlet without someone picking up on his churlish stupidity.
So we’ll see. He will self destruct and I may yet move along to another gig anyway. But there will be other dumb people there too. They’re everywhere. They just don’t know they’re dumb. And that’s a little sad but still annoying as fuck.
Don’t get me wrong. I mostly feel sad for dumb people. It’s a handicap of sorts but they don’t get the parking sticker or the dog. But when their false confidence turns to bravado and mean-spiritedness, then I lose my humor pretty quickly. We see this daily with the ideologically fueled Trump supporters who so desperately want to feel relevant and instead of improving themselves or their situation they want to tear down the dreams and initiatives of others. They want to deny women control over their bodies. They want to turn away poor immigrants who have nothing in this world and no way to pursue a decent life for themselves and their children. They would literally rather see the planet burned down, than to participate in a new kind of economy that at least gives us a chance. They will see the Palestinians completely eradicated; Putin taking over Eastern Europe; resist tax reform to rein in wealth inequality; handicap our education system with racial and sexual hatred. These regressive good christian brethren led by their porn star banging, pussy-grabbing, illiterate, bible-selling failed business executive. God love em.
When someone says ‘God Love you‘ — it always means they feel sorry for you, or they mean you are dumb.
I had to switch health insurance companies which also meant I had to get a new doc. That’s the way we roll here in America. We don’t discriminate — providers and patients all hate our health care system. The two most important constituencies.
Insurance companies, drug companies and medical device complains love it. They buy off the politicians and use the chaos and dysfunction to generate outlandish margins. For those of my beloved readers who live outside the US, it is actually against the law here for the US government to negotiate with drug companies for better pricing. It’s also against the law, although millions of people do it, to drive to Canada to buy your meds where they are between 30% and 90% cheaper than just across the border.
But because we’re American strong and proud, we refuse to change our system. We love to demonize all those other countries’ for their national health care because our system is better dammit! We don’t care that we pay twice as much to receive half as much because we’re not commie bastards.
A friend of mine has to take a med here that cost him around $800/month (after insurance co-pay). But he recently discovered the drug in Thailand is available for around $40/month and he fortunately has a friend who frequents Thailand and so enlisted him as a drug mule.
Brittany and I had a great 3-year anniversary weekend at Black Dog Ridge. We had champagne sundowners on the Ridge Rock, made homemade pasta, hiked, went to a great birthday party of some friends, drank some good whisky and smoked some cigars. Very relaxing and lovely. We came back Sunday in time for Easter dinner with Rita and the fam.
Marti got into a little scrap with a 17-year old, 10-lb dog that was blind and deaf and she still managed to get the worst of it — so we had to band-aid her ear. A blow to her ego more than anything I think.
We always manage to find some fun. Big fun and little fun and daily fun. Life is just so much easier when you don’t take it too seriously and in spite of this being my safe space to bitch and moan and ramble on about dummies, it slides off my back and we just keep having fun.
Each night before bed, at least when in Ohio, I take Marti for a walk up to town and back. We have to walk by the funeral home and I always imagine it smells like formaldehyde. Which I’m pretty sure is actually my imagination. But tonight, it definitely smelled like weed. And the lights were on in the basement and a window was open. But I figured if I was down there all night pumping chemicals into dead bodies, I’d probably be stoned too.
Humbly Submitted
Rob Myres – Flanker, Portneuf Valley Rugby Football Club (retired)
The Martini Tales 