The Company You Keep

“Company.”

The dictionary defines the word as “a commercial business.”

Wikipedia, as usual, is a bit more verbose:

“A company is an association or collection of individuals, people or “warm-bodies” or else contrived “legal persons” (or a mixture of both). Company members share a common purpose and unite in order to focus their various talents and organize their collectively available skills or resources to achieve specific, declared goals. Companies take various forms such as [a] … [b]usiness entity with an aim of gaining a profit.”

Source: Wikipedia – Company

“Warm bodies?” Holy shit. Wikipedia nails it. Again!

The business manager stormed into the meeting and saw a lot of empty chairs. “God damn it,” he bellowed. “Get me more warm bodies in here!”

Most of us born and bred in the United States wholly swallow – hook, line and sinker – the premise that a company is an organization comprised of human beings with the shared goal of making money, i.e., acquiring profit.

My purpose here today is debate the other point of view, that this concept we’ve so fully accepted is complete and utter horseshit.

Wake Me Up Before I Go-Go

Death At A Funeral

This post thoughtfully combines two exciting topics into one. Think of it like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup full o’ love. I hate peanut butter. Why ruin it with chocolate? But I digress.

Bucket List: Walk out on a funeral.—
Tom B. Taker (@shoutabyss) February 25, 2013

I’ve always wanted to plan my own wake. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. And this weekend I walked out on a funeral. Is there a way I can merge these ideas in a single blogging experience?

Let’s try!

Yo, Jack! Handy Creep Thoughts by Tom Taker

Don’t you want to play with me? Hugs!

Tom’s Law #42
Never accept personal hygiene advice from someone who smells like the laundry hamper from the high school football team’s locker room.

Perhaps you’ve met the sort. The sort that acts superior like they are somehow better than you in every way. I guess you have to grudgingly admire an overactive imagination:

I’m smarter than you. Except everything I do ends up being the most idiotic shit you’ve ever seen.

Inventive Guru: Trinary Listening

As a self-proclaimed “Guru of Negativity” one of my primary areas of interest and study has been, of course, the modern human communicator. And by using the term “communicator” I mean, of course, those who flap their gums creating a great wind. This is also sometimes known as a “giant sucking sound.” By the year 2012 ears had become obsolete as the art of listening had fallen on deaf ears. Or something like that.

As I pondered the notion that we had become a nation of assholes, I was eventually granted the gift of awareness. Abandoning the art of listening is a critical ingredient to becoming a great asshole. In fact, when one learns to stop listening that may be the pivotal moment of assholiness.

Tom’s Law #42
Assholes are persons where self-image exceeds reality.

Ever the optimist, I decided that necessity was a mother that needed nursing. Or something like that. So, in a fit of inventiveness, I hit the drawing boards on a quest to invent something capable of saving humanity.

The syllable gu means shadows
The syllable ru, he who disperses them,
Because of the power to disperse darkness
the guru is thus named.

— Advayataraka Upanishad 14—18, verse 5
Source: Wikipedia

The time had come to put my guru powers to good use. And I’m glad to say that I answered the call.

I call my latest invention: Trinary Listening.

Hyppo and Critter: Too Much Self

Hello in a Restaurant

My wife told me to be short when writing. I told her my height doesn’t change.

When I walk in a restaurant, I don’t expect much. But I do like to be greeted. A little eye contact. The word, “Hello.” This should be from the first person who sees me. If even a single employee walks by and gives me the “I pretend not to see you because greeting customers is not my department” then I become irritated.

I understand that employees in a restaurant may be busy. Hell, they may even not be poised at the ready saying, “Tom should be here any minute. Look alive, people!” All it takes is a second to say, “I’ll be right with you.”

Above all else I’m a reasonable guy.

Without eye contact, a greeting and a friendly “I’ll be right with you” I can wait about two minutes before saying (to myself), “Fuck this place!” For every employee who gives me the “not my department” routine you can take a minute from that time.

If greeted, though, I’ll happily wait five minutes or more.

Then there’s this other guy…

My wife and I were in the restaurant, already at a table, enjoying our lunch. A guy walked in. I’m not sure why but he caught my eye. It might have been the way he bellowed.

He strode in, stopped a few feet inside the door, which had just closed behind him. He then waited 1.5 seconds without being helped. No wait staff was in sight. Then he bellowed, “Hello???”

Every head in the restaurant turned. Forks dropped to plates. Everyone was stunned. What the fuck was going on here? It’s rather unusual to yell like that. Something must be up.

A waitress ran from the back. I watched the whole thing go down. I was zoomed in. I had the tunnel vision.

“What are the hours of the haircut place three doors down?” the man demanded. “Their door is locked.”

Ah. I see. You obviously saw our sign that reads, “We help customers from all businesses that are not are own.” Yeah, why don’t you go fuck yourself?

The waitress, who is naturally a nice person, tried to help. “You see, we don’t know about that. That’s like a whole other business. They don’t check in with us. We have no information.”

The guy angrily strode out.

This is the planet I live on. A planet where people like that exist. Then, as we were leaving, the guy came back in for more! I gave him laser beams of death as we fled the building. What an enjoyable meal. Speaking of meal, I would very much like to feast on his soul.

Hey, look. This was less than 500 words.

Conversational Masturbation

Concept #1

Wikipedia says the “cultural generations” of western society have progressed like this:

Lost Generation • Greatest Generation • Silent Generation • Baby Boom Generation • Generation X • Millenial Generation (Generation Y) • Generation Z

I know I normally remain anonymous, but I am now willing to share this much about myself: I’m from one of those generations.

Concept #2

Meanwhile, researchers at Harvard announced results of a study last Monday that said, in so many words: We really get off on talking about ourselves.

I will now attempt to merge these two disparate concepts into a unique, unifying theory of my own creation that I hereby dub, “Conversational Masturbation.”

We start with a case study of a subject from the Baby Boom Generation:

The boss’ wife thinks it is important that she and her husband (my boss) go for a walk every day. She has several valid reasons for her desire to walk together but I think one of them is that she also wants a little payback for the douchebag structuring his life so as to spend as little time with her and the rest of his family as possible.

Each day she calls to arrange with him the time when they will walk together. She shows up at the office on time. He then makes her wait. The other day she waited 90 minutes before he was finally not “busy” enough that the office could spare him for an hour.

Recently she stopped by and asked him, “So where would you like to walk today?” He responded non-verbally by getting up from his chair, walking across the room, going in the restroom and shutting the door. (I’d call this douchebaggery but I’ve got my researcher hat on now so I have to stay all scientific and shit with my analysis.)

When he exited the restroom, she asked him again, “So where would you like to go walking today?”

He still didn’t respond. He walked across the room, joined her near the front door, then, as they were preparing to exit, he noticed the mail table covered with outgoing shipments.

He then exclaimed – and this is an exact quote preserved for posterity: “Hey, look! Boxes!“

My grand theory of Conversational Masturbation will attempt to explain this behavior and more.