Setting Fire to Plastic People

I hate them; posers, fakers, plastic people who could care less about you, but ask you how you’re doing anyways. I find genuine people refreshing, no matter how rough their edges are. In my lifetime, I’ve been fortunate enough to come across straight-shooters who tell it like it is. Then again, I’ve met people who will smile at you one minute, then sling some serious shit about you behind your back the next minute.

Regarding the initial statement made above, I find it somewhat ironic that despite my intense loathing of plastic people I am in the fundraising profession. Ass kissing in fundraising is as rampant as Chlamydia at a private Catholic high school. At The Facility, the big boss is a master ass kisser with such a repertoire for tactfulness that he could teach the “How to Kiss Ass for Profit and Influence” class at any university. Fortunately, I was born without the ability to kiss ass, which has been challenging at certain times, yet allows me to look in the mirror on a daily basis and know that if I was hit by a bus crossing the street that very afternoon, I would die with a clean soul (well mostly clean anyways).

My problem with working in fundraising and having an acute knowledge of the plethora of plastic people sharing my profession is perception. Case in point, in a previous job, I had the opportunity to sit down with a gentleman in his 90s who was one of the original aviation barons. After drinking his glass of scotch and soda he reminisced about developing aircraft technologies with the likes of William Boeing and other great aviation masters. His stories were fascinating. Here was a man who, in his lifetime, helped airplanes go from crafts where the propellers had to be started manually to jumbo jetliners. I hung on his every word and felt so positive about the evening, until I got home and had the chance to think about it.

Although I could care less what most people think of me, that night I worried that this great man thought that the only reason I was listening to him came purely out of the motivation of schmoozing him for a contribution to my organization. I hoped that we made enough of a connection that he could see that I was really interested in his stories, but herein lays my daily predicament. I don’t kiss ass, and will tell you what I’m after point blank, but due to the kiss ass, plastic people in my world, I often have to wonder if the folks I deal with think I am one of the evil ones. I really shouldn’t care, but I do.

Since plastic people put me in this ethical dilemma on a regular basis, when I have the misfortune of running into one, I feel completely cool with torturing them, particularly the people who ask you how you are doing when you know they don’t give a fuck. On one hand I am tempted to just say, “Fine, thanks” and move on, but the inclination to induce mental anguish is just too good to resist. When I get the fake question, I want to launch into a diatribe about a random problem that would be boring even for people who are genuinely interested in my life, let alone someone who doesn’t really want to know me from Adam. It would be one of those sick, sadistic pleasures to watch them become nearly physically ill from having to listen to me drone on and on about nothing. The kicker is that these plastic people are usually so caught up in wanting to be the most popular kid in school that they never walk away from someone who is leaving a trail of vocal drool. They will listen, helplessly, until someone butts in to say “hello” and relieves them of the anguish. Until then, however, the sadist in me does relish the few sweet minutes of cosmic payback I get.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that businesses are pushing for genuine politeness, so when a salesperson asks me how I’m doing I take it more as his job duty rather than a genuine interest, and I’m happy to follow with a “well, thank you.” My brand of revenge is intended for the people who live in my neighborhood, the pathetic ass kissers in my occupational field who give us realists a bad name, and those socialite mommies who you know will eventually end up shopping in the juniors section in an attempt to compete with their daughters in about 12 years.

They say it takes all kinds to make the world go around, but I’m optimistic. I think the world would be just fine if there were no more Paris Hiltons, Kathy Lee Giffords, Jessica Simpsons, or those broads in the neighborhood who run into you once in a blue moon at the park and with a smile say, “I’m so happy to see you again, we should really get together.” Yeah bitch, I live two houses down, and funny, I’ve never heard a knock at my door or a ring on my phone. Thanks, but no thanks; I’d rather spend my time hanging with friends who are made of actual flesh and blood.