I have lots to do to catch-up with all the emails people sent me, and frantic follow up emails with subject lines like “!!!!!”, because people are too dumb to understand my vacation message that was sent to everyone who emailed me.
“I will be out of the office and unable to respond to email from Wednesday 3/29 at 5pm until Monday 4/3 at 8:30 am. If you need immediate assistance, please contact X at (xxx) xxx-xxxx”
Upon having that message arrive in your inbox, would you email me AGAIN with a rambling and grammatically nightmarish message about things you want me to do? Of course not, because you’re not an idiot.
So while I’m sorting through the people to dumb to know their derriere from an excavation in Terra firma, I want to tell you a quick story, and then get some feedback from you.
I was on the 4th floor of a 4 story hotel in Wichita (a skyscraper by their standards) and on a trip in the elevator down to the lobby, the elevator stopped on the 3rd floor and a group of people got on.
One of the people was some sort of sales rep, or company representative, or something like that, because he immediately started bloviating about his product. He was saying lots of stuff, but none of it really had any meaning, or weight. He was using lots of jargon like, “synergy, deliverables, market placement, and mayonnaise enema” but what really stood out were a couple of specific things he said.
At one point when speaking about a “marketing blitz” he also mentioned that his company had split the regional teams into separate “axises” and that they were on their way to completing the “final solution” for their customer.
I kept waiting for him to shout “Sieg heil” and give the Nazi salute, but it never happened.
Now, I could understand if he had only mentioned one of those terms, or even two of them, but all three mentioned in just a few sentences suggested one of a few things to me.
A) He’s a WWII enthusiast, and he couldn’t help but have the jargon slip from his unconscious.
B) He’s a neo-nazi peddling crap software in the midwest.
C) He’s so oblivious about world history that he has no idea how “blitz” “Axis” and “final solution” could be misconstrued.
What do you think? Is it A, B, or C, or, like everyone else, do you think I’m reading too much into it?
Oh, I should also mention that he was dressed like a stormtrooper, had a Hitler moustache, had a thick German accent, and was carrying books about how the Holocaust was a hoax.
You got to meet David Horowitz?
Reading into it? Noooooo. I choose D - All of the Above.
C - He thinks they’re business buzz words. He heard his Neo-Nazi boss use them and thought they sounded cool.
Was one of the books “Getting to ‘Ja’”?
Wait wait- at any point did he mention a new slogan for his company, like “Arbeicht Macht Frei?”
he is a variant of A. An enthusiast of WWII history, although not explicitly fascist or anti-Semitic, as a sales rep who prides himself for his cut throat efficiency, he cannot help himself from having a begrudging respect for the third reich war machine. Likely collects third rate german war memorabilia. Likely a conservative christian. Likely gets a giant stiffy when he reads biographies of Rommel, of which he owns many. Participates in National Review discussion forums under the nickname “Desert Fox.” Is on Neckbone’s buddy list.
C - someone named Hitler, Jr was speaking into the guy’s earpiece, telling him what to say, and laughing his ass off.
eeb- got your back.
option 5- is my dad.
possibly. i mean, my real mom got around.
He needed a cookie and no one would give him one.
perhaps he’s just some standard midwestern hick who hates his job and suffers in silence with only Little Debbie swiss cake rolls and all-night History Channel binges to keep him from shooting up the joint.
See? If he believed in evolution, he could have hookers and blow.
Dude.
I think that was my boss. Was he wearing a bow tie and saying, “Let’s look at this from the 40,000 foot level”? Was he?! It was him alright. You should have pushed him down the elevator shaft while you had the chance.
mokie- of course not. David Horowitz is too dumb to know how to ride an elevator.
DL- Really? Hmm, I hadn’t considered that. Dirty Nazi bastards!
CBK- Honestly, I’d prefer “final solution” to “deliverables”
mokie- No, but he did say something about his company’s motto being “Work makes freedom”
eebmore- I giggled like a schoolgirl with your reference to our Aryan wunderkind in Northern Baltimore.
Poppy- For some reason that really struck me as funny, like he’s a news guy or something.
mokie- word up.
Kendra- Really? Do you ever have the urge to systematically torture 6 million people?
Serra- Hmm, this cookie theory makes no sense whatsoever, and yet, is completely plausible… nah, I prefer my Nazi crap.
Hink- Funniest part is, for every billboard advertising a magechurch, there are 5 advertising bars, boobs, and betting.
Jemima- Unfortunately they only give hotel guests access to the elevator, and don’t let us tinker with open elevator shafts. However, I could have shot him with the complimentary Derringer they gave me at check-in. Sorry.
Isn’t anyone else wondering how this guy had that much time to spout off all this crap in a 3-story elevator ride?
Nevertheless, I choose C. Most of the population of the earth is an idiot. I have an inkling that they congregate in placed like Wichita and York, Pennsylvania (myself excluded), and say stupid things like “deliverables” to sound more intelligent…but of course, if you add in “axises”, “final solution”, and “blitz”, you come off sounding like an unintelligent neo-Nazi. Oops.
He probably got done watching some WWII special on Discovery Channel or something. I too work in business to business sales, and I HATE those stupid buzzwords my peers use like synergy, thinking outside the box, value-add. It all just loses it’s meaning from overuse.
So many he was trying to be a little more creative after running out of stupid ass buzzwords.
Maybe I should use Star Wars references in my next sales presentation.
“My company just set up different Governors to rule all of the galaxy under the Emperor CEO. I’m sure we’ll defeat the competition and wipe all the Jedi off the face of the universe.”
I object. For some of us, “mayonnaise enema” has profound meaning.
What I really want to know is…how’d you keep from laugihng?
I’d say C, and blame it on the school systems in Kansas.
that enema better not be Hellmans.
and I prefer Ketchup to Catsup.
Given the last paragraph… my guess would be:
enthusiast…totally.