Sunday, February 3, 2013

Watching the World Burn

I really hate blogs, as a general rule.  Usually, they start off really nice and fun, and that's great.  But eventually they devolve into someone incessantly espousing their complaints with ...oh, well, EVERYTHING.  And that's the reason I tend(ed?) to stay away from blogging, because eventually I'll become the one doing the bitching, instead of the innocent bystander.

But here I am.  Cue: Bitch Blog.

Haha.  I'm not actually going to complain about things going on in my personal life, mainly because there's nothing there to complain about.  The complaints that I want to address are general, and are simply the result of some of my observations (and conversations with friends) lately.

It started like this:

As you may know, I work as a teller at a small credit union.  The job is a story within itself, but the credit union as a whole has been under renovation for nearly a year now, since a new president was appointed.  The president of the credit union, basically serves as a figure-head for the employees and board members (as well as the members) and helps establish new policies and promotions.  Pretty fancy stuff.  In an effort to boost morale around the work place, as well as appear more open to the customers, the president has implemented a couple of contests.  The first one, was actually really rewarding.  For a month, tellers were encouraged to ask/mention the credit card services offered by the bank.  Anytime they did not mention credit cards to a member, the member could take a dollar from the slacking teller's jar.  At the end of the promotion, the teller could keep however much money was in their jar.  GEE WILIKERS!!! FREE MONEY?  Yeah, at the end of that promotion, guess who still had all $50... mostly everyone.  There were a couple of tellers who, by one member or another, had lost a dollar. (They were reimbursed said dollar by another member though, so, no worries).  This month, we began yet another contest. The intention: to make the bank seem like a more welcoming place.  For the month of February, if your teller does not call you by name, you get a candy bar. Because my work place is "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" .... Cheeeeeeeers.  Except that it isn't, because I don't know anyone's name (and for that matter, neither does any other teller).  And it shows, as I've lost two candy bars already.  Which is honestly fine, I don't say people's names, therefore, all of this is completely deserved on my part. I digress, I guess these promotions are fun, and cute, and may have taken some clever minds to construct, but as I reflect on them, I really can't help being repulsed by them.

They thrive on the egocentric nature of human beings.  Absolutely disgusting.  The idea that someone is going to appear to be affronted because someone else didn't call them by their name, to the point that they would need some sort of gratification to fill the void is sickening to me.  It sounds a lot like stepping on people for your own benefit, because that's what it's designed to do.  Credit Cards and Name Calling aren't something that these members (or tellers) usually care about, but setting up a reward system increases its intrinsic value; all of a sudden, now that one benefits from doing this new thing, it's more appealing to do it.  WE'RE LIKE RATS IN A DAMN SKINNER BOX.  Does anyone realize it?  I'm not sure.  I'm not sure they even know who Skinner is.  Again, I digress, I've gotten way off topic.  Feeding off of a person's tendency to better them self with no regard for anyone else, is like wanting to watch the world burn.

And who wants to watch the world burn? People like the Joker.  I'm not like the Joker.  I'm like Bruce Wayne, "I'm not afraid, I'm angry."

I'm frustrated at the back-handedness of people.  And the people who exploit such back-handedness.

I'll go ahead and apologize for this one.  This post is just a rant.

-J

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