You ever see somebody who has a lot of nice things and a lot of money and you think to yourself "I am smarter than this person. There are sacks full of rocks smarter than this person. What could they posibly be doing that I am incapable of doing that they can afford all this stuff?"
I encounter these people on a daily basis. I work in retail.
I think I have discovered something of what goes toward putting these people in a higher tax bracket: They are assholes. They are so unpleasant to have to deal with for any length of time that other people will actually pay them to go away. The guy who came up with the addage "The customer is always right" either never had to deal with one of these people, or he WAS one of these people. They have no business prowess that I can discern, other than the ability to make people's lives a living hell.
Here's an example: We were making some directional arrows for a customer. Arrows: Straight line with a point at one end. Nothing complicated. When the customer came to pick them up, the saleperson helping this lady, Kevin, in an attempt to be cute, held the arrows pointing in one direction and said "Oops! We made them pointing the wrong way." The lady flipped. She started screaming and demanding a full refund and to see the manager and the first born of each and every employee that has ever been associated with any FastSigns store in the continental U.S. and so on. Kevin, taken slightly aback and this unexpected response, simply turned the arrows the other way and says "Ma'am...I was kidding." It took a bit more to difuse the woman and she eventually left with an embarrased grin on her face.
Here's another good one for you: We make a couple different styles of A-frame signs. Generally, these have a business name, services provided, and an arrow directing people which way they might find such services. Now, we design these signs so that no matter which direction you are viewing the sign from the arrow will be pointing in the correct direction: i.e.: the arrow on one side is mirrored to the arrow on the other side. This also means that if you turn the aframe around both arrows will still be pointing in the same direction, although opposite to the direction they were just pointing before you turn the sign around. We have had people call in and ask that we "fix their signs because we made them wrong". After finally deciphering what these inarticulate mushheads were talking about, we usually come up with a very complicated and technically involved possible solution: Turn the sign around. Some people will STILL argue that this obviously revolutionary idea will not work because they "know what they ordered". Then somebody, usually an assitant or a five-year-old kid will turn the sign around and show our patron that yes: it was, just that simple. These conversations generally end, suddenly and somewhat abbreviated, with a click.
And these people make way more moeny than I do.
So, why am I dealing with these people making just enough to live on, when I could be exploring all the fun of a 6 digit income? Why do I settle for less than it may be actually possible for me to achieve? Why do I prance around like an idiot at the end of Yuri's strings?
Oh, that's easy, I'm lazy. But it's a very specialized kind of lazy. Anyone that works for 14 hours a day isn't lazy. It's possible that they just aren't directed. But I DO have a direction. The problem with trying to make a career plan as an actor is that it's like trying to nail water to the wall. And yet we just keep hammering away, don't we.
No, the reason (at least one of them) I don't just join these mindless self-endulgent muck-dwellers is that I'm not an asshole (not that kind at least). I don't think the suffering of others justifies my personal gain. There is a part of my soul that demands that life be something more than a biting, kicking scramble for the top of the middle heap. It would be nice if I could get paid to do the things I love to do (Good luck in L.A., guys!) but until that day, I think I'll have to pick the balance of doing what I enjoy doing and maybe trying to enrich the lives of others (through prancing around like an idiot, among other things) instead of hording all I can before I die.
And your dictionary.com word of the day is:
sesquipedalian \ses-kwuh-puh-DAYL-yuhn\, adjective:
1. Given to or characterized by the use of long words.
2. Long and ponderous; having many syllables.
Happy Jenday, everybody!