nin137

Nick's Journal
2009-01-28 19:41:44 (UTC)

Assume All are Assholes

"Why do you always assume everyone's going to be an asshole?"
this was posed to me by one of our it guys who was angry
with me wanting to have the provider spell out all of their
terms in our contract.
"I mean not you specifically, but lawyers, you always assume
people are going to be assholes."

well i think the reason is quite plain to see, but it lead
me to think that i need to add some more people to the
"asshole list".

first and foremost are car dealers. now i hate grouping
people more than anyone (as lawyers are subject to a lot of
animosity as a group), but jesus christ. juli and i decided
to maybe get a car in a couple of months so we requested a
couple of quotes. bad fucking idea.
i've had one dealer call me up twice a week. i went from
subtle hints to exasperated directness. in fact, he i just
got off what i hope was my last phone call with him just now
(which finally spurred me to write this entry).
you see for some reason car dealers think that when you say,
"I am not in the market for a car any longer"
you actually mean,
"I am not in the market for the specific car I initially
requested but I'd love for you to call me twice a week to
let me know about all of the other 'deals' you have going on."
fuck.

and the part that pissed me off the most was when i first
asked about the car. he quoted me the price then started
quoting the price of all of these "optional accessories".
when i said i didn't want him he told me,
"Well the car already comes with those accessories on it."
"Well then how are they optional?"
"Well I can give them to you for a reduced price."
ARGH!

but they aren't the only assholes. a few nights ago i was
walking my dog. it was 8:30 on a wednesday night. now we
live in a residential portion of our city. normally it is
quiet as the country around this time of night, but as we
turned on to one particular street i couldn't help but
notice that there was a loud racket emanating from
somewhere. i immediately thought it was one of those
assholes who has to have their music basing like all hell
out of their cars, but this was really beyond any car
capabilities.
i walked in the directino of the noise. after a block i
stood before the culprit. a house from which the music was
blasting at a decibel that was mind-shattering. more
specifically it was coming from a garage.
then i realized what it was. you see the residential area
is right across from the university area, so a few college
students rent some houses here. woe be to those who live
next to them.
i stood with my dog acrosss the street and just listened for
a while. it didn't take long for one of the drunk guys out
front to start threatening to kick my ass. which of course
leads me to my favorite situation. the drunken callout that
never is followed through upon. i stood there with my dog
for about 5 minuters as the guy told me how he was gonig to
kick my ass. of course he was drunk as all hell so the
threats were kind of a reflexive activity.

so finally we come to the grade-A asshole. the
assholishness that deserves the death penalty. this of
course is reserved for the person who uses up the last of
the coffee without making a fresh batch.
now in our kitchen we have those canisters through which
coffee is dispensed through a metallic lever that pumps it
out through the top.
the beauty of these canisters is that you can't "juke" them.
in other wrods, they act like they are completely full
until all of a sudden the final spurt flies out. the spurt
is so loud that anyone using it has no choice but to refill
them.
yet somehow, someone has managed to go undetected. of cousre
this isn't hard to do if noone else is in the kitchen, but
given the amount of people working at this place htat is a
rare occassion (especially in the morning).
so this past morning i walked into the kitchen from the door
closest to the bathroom (as i had just taken a piss). this
door (unlike the other door) faces the ccffee canisters so
that anyone using them has their back to you. i walked in
and found one of the guys from customer service working the
canister, then i heard the "splurt" sound. i was holding
the door open so as not to alert him of my presence and got
exactly what i had hoped for:
i noticed his back muscles tense up as he stood up straight
obviously thinking,
"shit, that was the last one."
then i saw a quick glance to his right (the first door)
after which he quickly removed his hand from the metallic
prong and turned a full 180 to rush for the second door,
which is where he bumped in to me (as i had let the door
close slowly and had moved closer to him at that time).
he gave a look of angry consternation as he brushed past me,
at which time i couldn't resist but ask,
"is there any coffee left?"
he glared at me and shuffled,
"i don't know...i think there's some."
and then quickly took off.

asshole.




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