A Friend's Self-Relfection
A friend of mine called me just a little bit ago. Granted, I use the rem friend a little liberally here. I met this guy, let's call him Matt, about 8 years ago at a party hosted by a mutual acquaintance. The party was geared towards small business owners in the area, people who were out of work and people who were trying to expand their networks beyond friends and co-workers.
Matt was nicely dressed, thin in a 1950's working father kind of way with a head of silvered hair. He was quick with a laugh and loved telling anyone who would listen about his successes in the commercial truck leasing industry.
He and I bonded over mutual unemployment and the dreams of a better job somewhere right around the corner. You see, we were both casualties of the Bush Administration policies that tanked the economy. Unfortunately for him, he had a wife and small children at home while I merely had my dog and mortgage.
I ended up losing both.
While I eventually took a part-time job so far beneath me as to be embarrassing, Matt took a full-time job in a bicycle repair shop where he wasn't a manager or even a team lead, but he liked telling people he "ran the shop." And yet, when he said he could get my bike in there for a tune-up for the low low cost of parts, I ended up paying for everything due to his inability to fulfill his promise.
He lost that job for accepting a 6-pack as well as full payment for someone's bike.
He then went on to a series of jobs, most of them unpaid and all of them failures for someone else's fault.
That's when I learned something about Matt. A staunch Christian Republican with libertarian tendencies, Matt was the kind of person who repeated everything coming out of the mouthpieces at Fox News as though they were gospel and irrefutable. And yet, all of the ills he's experienced in life were someone else's problems.
He'll gladly tell you how he took his father's $300k - $400k a year company into the seven figure range, but will not consider taking the business over permanently from his father. He'll gleefully tell you about how he had a base pay of $50,000/year, but with commission he was well into six figures a year.
And yet, he won't go back to that industry.
He's told me numerous times, "I just want someone to hire me at a six figure salary plus commission. I won't accept anything less."
And yet, when he fails to get called back after being interviewed, it's the HR person or the hiring manager who fails to recognize his potential. Not he who failed to make himself a desirable candidate.
After a few years of listening to his stories I finally drew back from our friendship, calling him only once or twice a year to make sure he was still alive. He's always "working on something" without being gainfully employed and it always falls through right before he's to be compensated for his work.
And it's never his fault. Managers, CEOs, VPs of sales - they're all out to ruin him.
My point is this: for someone who stringently claims to believe in the idea of self-rule, he's never been one to accept the consequences or blame for his own situation. Everything in his life is always someone else's fault or the fault of the universe itself.
Today he called to ask me if I had any connections at a nearby university. I didn't but I gave him some advice on how to find the right people. He thanked me and then said, "I'm still trying to make a living. It's this damn president. If it weren't for that asshole I'd be wealthy by now. He's single handily ruining the economy."
That's a perfect example of him placing the blame everywhere but at his own doorstep. His inability to find a decently paying job isn't his fault, it's the president's, or congress' or the governor's or a million other people's and not his own. When I tried to explain to him that the economy has done better under Obama than Bush he interrupted me and told me I didn't know what I was talking about.
How can someone who believes in the libertarian idea of individual accountablity always blame other people for his failures?
In the end, I ended up hanging up on him. I was tempted to tell him not to call me again since I'm tired of hearing his "woe is me" rhetoric, but I didn't. This was the first time in nearly two years he's initiated the conversation and I have to believe he will figure it out for himself. Of course, he might not. He can't figure out what the common denominator is, so maybe self-reflection isn't his strong suit.
Matt was nicely dressed, thin in a 1950's working father kind of way with a head of silvered hair. He was quick with a laugh and loved telling anyone who would listen about his successes in the commercial truck leasing industry.
He and I bonded over mutual unemployment and the dreams of a better job somewhere right around the corner. You see, we were both casualties of the Bush Administration policies that tanked the economy. Unfortunately for him, he had a wife and small children at home while I merely had my dog and mortgage.
I ended up losing both.
While I eventually took a part-time job so far beneath me as to be embarrassing, Matt took a full-time job in a bicycle repair shop where he wasn't a manager or even a team lead, but he liked telling people he "ran the shop." And yet, when he said he could get my bike in there for a tune-up for the low low cost of parts, I ended up paying for everything due to his inability to fulfill his promise.
He lost that job for accepting a 6-pack as well as full payment for someone's bike.
He then went on to a series of jobs, most of them unpaid and all of them failures for someone else's fault.
That's when I learned something about Matt. A staunch Christian Republican with libertarian tendencies, Matt was the kind of person who repeated everything coming out of the mouthpieces at Fox News as though they were gospel and irrefutable. And yet, all of the ills he's experienced in life were someone else's problems.
- he lost his job because his boss wouldn't support him
- he lost his other job because his boss didn't understand how businesses worked
- his marriage was going downhill because he promised his wife she could be a stay-at-home wife and he failed to keep the paychecks coming in
The list goes on and on. If it wasn't someone he could personally blame then it was Democrats. When Obama was elected suddenly all his problems were the president's fault even though the president has nothing to do with him getting and keeping a job.
- he went to work for an entrepreneur at his church as a business development expert and failed to bring in new business, but it was the economy's fault
He'll gladly tell you how he took his father's $300k - $400k a year company into the seven figure range, but will not consider taking the business over permanently from his father. He'll gleefully tell you about how he had a base pay of $50,000/year, but with commission he was well into six figures a year.
And yet, he won't go back to that industry.
He's told me numerous times, "I just want someone to hire me at a six figure salary plus commission. I won't accept anything less."
And yet, when he fails to get called back after being interviewed, it's the HR person or the hiring manager who fails to recognize his potential. Not he who failed to make himself a desirable candidate.
After a few years of listening to his stories I finally drew back from our friendship, calling him only once or twice a year to make sure he was still alive. He's always "working on something" without being gainfully employed and it always falls through right before he's to be compensated for his work.
And it's never his fault. Managers, CEOs, VPs of sales - they're all out to ruin him.
My point is this: for someone who stringently claims to believe in the idea of self-rule, he's never been one to accept the consequences or blame for his own situation. Everything in his life is always someone else's fault or the fault of the universe itself.
Today he called to ask me if I had any connections at a nearby university. I didn't but I gave him some advice on how to find the right people. He thanked me and then said, "I'm still trying to make a living. It's this damn president. If it weren't for that asshole I'd be wealthy by now. He's single handily ruining the economy."
That's a perfect example of him placing the blame everywhere but at his own doorstep. His inability to find a decently paying job isn't his fault, it's the president's, or congress' or the governor's or a million other people's and not his own. When I tried to explain to him that the economy has done better under Obama than Bush he interrupted me and told me I didn't know what I was talking about.
How can someone who believes in the libertarian idea of individual accountablity always blame other people for his failures?
In the end, I ended up hanging up on him. I was tempted to tell him not to call me again since I'm tired of hearing his "woe is me" rhetoric, but I didn't. This was the first time in nearly two years he's initiated the conversation and I have to believe he will figure it out for himself. Of course, he might not. He can't figure out what the common denominator is, so maybe self-reflection isn't his strong suit.
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