Thus, we have a metric that is unenforceable and ultimately doesn't matter.
Thanks, administrators! How much money did you steal in your annual bonus for meeting that metric?
Mrs. Fox and I went out to lunch the other day.
Great restaurant. I had a chicken chimichurri flatbread with goat cheese, roasted red peppers, etc. It was soooo good.
We always sit at the bartop. We like being at a "corner", because she is left-handed and that way there's no way our elbows can bump.
We're enjoying our meal, and we can't help but overhear a conversation between two old men a few barstools away.
Blah, blah, blah... rate of return, blah BLAH blah... mergers and acquisitions... blahhh... market forces.
I look over at them. Mrs. Fox can already see the venom in my gaze. I snarl internally. I want to sink my fangs into their neck and clench until they stop bleating and kicking like the mindless sheep that they are.
Both of them are wearing an awful button-down oxford with their initials embroidered on their sleeves and collars that don't match the color of the shirt (why anyone would do that is beyond me..... white collar, blue shirt? seems an open mockery to me). Their expensive watches are clearly poorly cared for. The lines on their faces are highlighted subtly with nicotine from their expensive cigars. The
piece de resistance (sp?) are those God-Awful "horse stirrup" charms on their loafers. Everything about them says: "Look at
this! It's
expensive! Are you impressed?"
These are the marks of a corporate @sshole.
They like expensive things, but they don't have the intellectual capacity to understand what's behind the
things that they treasure. They have their status symbols, but they don't understand why. They're the type that couldn't pass high-school chemistry, but would love to put on the air that they are masters of everything that they do... which is actually fitting, as all that they really do is sit in meetings and shuffle paperwork. They can't tell you why "Fahrenheit 451" is an appropriate title, but they have lots of big books on their bookshelves in their oak-clad offices that they have... never opened.
You can make a counter-argument about ER doc tropes and they are generally true.
We have carabiners on our keychains.
We buy "GoPro" accessories.
We flock to mountain sports and music festivals.
But the difference is: we generally understand and appreciate what we have, and what we like. We like the things that we like, because we LIKE them, not because "this is
expensive: look at it!" My most treasured items aren't expensive items, and I
care for them.
When someone on an airplane gets dyspneic and starts to struggle, nobody says: "Is there a regional vice-president on board?"
...
For the record, Mrs. Fox was successful in stopping me from saying something unkind. I said to her "I would not be able to live with myself if I were like
that."
She replied with: "I know. I wouldn't have married you if you were only interested in how expensive your next watch was."
