Unnecessary Courtesy

Being courteous will get you far in life, or at least that's what we're told from about age 3 and on. And you need not look further than the "License and Registration, Please" series from a few months back to see how we value etiquette and a heads-up attitude around these parts. But much like people often take the simple act of saying "thank you" to an unwelcome extent, there are certain elements of courteous behavior that are just flat-out superfluous.

Scene #1: you're walking into work around normal time on a typical morning, so that means there will likely be several other people walking into the building at about the same time as you. Now that you've got the mental picture, how easy is it to envision this: 2-3 people walk in about 50 feet ahead of you, one of whom holds the door for the other(s). That's all fine, it's common courtesy to keep the door open for someone walking in right behind you. But then this overly nice guy or girl continues to hold the door for you even though you're still a good 15 yards away. The mental reflex is for you to feel indebted to this person for maintaining the gigantic 12-kg force (yes I Googled it) necessary to hold the door open. And what happens next? Without even thinking, you break into that embarrassing "half-running-half-walking" stride so you look like you're making an effort to get to the door as quickly as possible and spare this Samaritan a second or two of exhausting door-holding duty. I've grown to detest this awkward power-walking gait so much that now I intentionally slow down when walking into work just so not to be caught in that door-holding gray area.

I'm an able bodied person, who is neither visibly injured nor carrying a ton of shit that would necessitate someone holding the door for me. And don't worry, I won't be mad if you simply allow the door to close when I'm any farther than 5 feet away. Opening the door for myself won't exactly ruin my morning. And on the other side of the coin, I'm not going to feel eternal gratitude to you if you stand there like a bellhop holding the door for me while I practically still have one foot in my car. So for everyone's sake, just walk in and get on with your business. Oh, and another note: going out of your way to hold the door for that good-looking chick who works on the third floor is not going to make her want to hook up with you, so just stop.

Scene #2: you're at the gym and it's fairly uncrowded. As you're in the middle of a set, Mr. Excessive Manners ambles over to you and asks "hey, are you working on that machine/bench/cable station over there?" Normally this would be no problem - in fact, I applaud such a level of gym etiquette - but in this case it's abundantly clear that there's no way in hell you're actually using the apparatus this dude wants to use. No sir, you see, I'm in the middle of a set of squats, what do you think the chances are that I'm also using the dip stand on the other side of the room? There are these things called muscle groups, and most people do not dip and squat on the same day, let alone super-set them. So relax Richard Simmons, you're not being presumptuous if you hop on the dip stand without asking me first, you're just using (gasp!) a bit of deductive reasoning and common sense.

What do we pin all this unnecessary courtesy to? It could just be that some people are so scared to ever make anyone mad, especially in a public setting, that they'll constantly try to appease others to avoid ever being thought of as rude or inconsiderate. But I think the bigger cause of this annoying behavior pattern is that too many people just aren't that observant. You can't live your life on autopilot. Keep the head on a swivel and have a sense of your surroundings, because even those seemingly ironclad rules of "being nice" that we're taught as kids have exceptions.

Analogy of the Month

America is founded upon the entitlement of its citizens to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But what is this happiness that we're supposed to be pursuing, and what measures do we take in this illustrious pursuit? And who are we ultimately trying to make happy - ourselves, or those whose opinions we value and whose approval we seek? The concept of happiness itself is both abstract, in that it means something different to everybody, and paradoxical, in that the more we strive to attain happiness, the less happy we often are.

Take a look at the everyday behavior of people and you'll notice that we bust our asses at a lot of things just so we can reach a level of acceptability - not greatness, not some kind of legendary status, but just plain acceptability. You see us get up every morning and sit in traffic like sperm cells on our way to work, only to repeat the action that night on the way home. You see people working out 5 times a week just so they can be attractive enough to avoid immediate rejection from the opposite sex. You see us throw a Prince Fielder-sized percentage of our earnings to the wind so we can have a decent place to live and a decent car to drive. Why all of this? Because we want. to. fit. in. The human race, especially in America, is constantly running on a hamster wheel, thus giving us the Analogy of the Month, the "Hamster Wheel of Happiness." You break your balls day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, just for the expectations to periodically reset themselves and force us to start over.

The general concept of happiness is that it's some sort of nirvana or utopia we're supposed to ultimately reach. So we work harder, put in more hours, put in more sweat, make an extra sacrifice or two, all in hopes that one day life will become like the bonus round at the end of the route in the old Nintendo game Paperboy. On this, look no further than Al Czervik for the appropriate wisdom - "if you keep busting your hump 16, 20 hours a day, you'll end up with a 60 million dollar funeral!"

The Hamster Wheel of Happiness is a damning course. People get on it with the best of intentions, and more often than not the chase for happiness itself becomes the very thing that beats them into a downtrodden state of self-defeat. To quote Denis Leary, happiness comes in small doses (go to the 2:20 mark of the video to be enlightened). There is no utopia. The Wizard at the end of the yellow brick road doesn't know shit. It's not about finding the dream job, it's just about finding a job you kind of like. Even the so-called "perfect job" will have its bad days and the even supposedly perfect couples will fight from time to time. Take enjoyment in the small things or else be eaten alive by the quest for the big things.

The fine line is this: assign some intrinsic value to your undertakings, or eventually you'll burn out or lose your mind. If you constantly work out in order to be in shape and be attractive by modern Western standards, then you'd better get some actual enjoyment and satisfaction out of it or you're ultimately wasting your time. That's why all the "I want a good beach body" people disappear from the gym after a month. At some point, it's got to be about the feeling you get from benching twice your weight or finishing that marathon that keeps you coming back. The same principle applies to your occupation - if there's a sense that you're making the most of your skills and providing more value than the Average Joe, then you can avoid entering Office Space mode.

Of course, this whole "Hamster Wheel" stuff isn't all bad. We all have our own hamster wheels that we run on, and when approached in the right manner, our neverending plights can be the formula for success. I've been doing an inordinate amount of quoting in this post already, but this one is too good to pass up. From Andrew Grove, former CEO of Intel, via our pal Ryan's Facebook profile: “Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.” What I like about that quote so much is that Grove says it's OK to run on a hamster wheel. Those who never lull themselves into a sense of security will always be on their toes. Attack life as as series of small challenges and small rewards, and you'll gain the perspective to see the big picture.

"It's Good Exercise"

If you live in the Northeast, you get pelted with snow this weekend are about to get pelted with snow again inside of 24 hours from now. Chances are also that you spent a fair amount of time shoveling snow this past weekend. The inevitable by-product of a snowy weekend is everyone talking on Monday at work about how much snow they got and how much time they spent outside clearing their driveways/sidewalks and how much it sucks, etc. And it is never long before that nails-on-a-chalkboard phrase comes out, "but at least it's good exercise!"

Let's make this clear. Shoveling snow is not good exercise. Yes, you get your heart pumping a bit and burn a very good deal of calories, but that does not make it good exercise. Soreness is good; waking up feeling like your back is broken is not good. A half hour on a stairmaster or elliptical that leaves you sweat-soaked? That's good exercise. Benching 100 lbs more than your weight for multiple reps? That's good exercise. The only people who consider shoveling to be "good exercise" are those who don't exercise to begin with, so for them just getting off the couch is a monumental accomplishment.

I laugh when people treat the smallest amount of physical activity as a.) an absolution from further physical activity in the near future, and b.) an excuse to go apeshit with the junk food. How many people would you bet said this weekend, "Oh, it's ok, I spent an hour shoveling snow, I can have 9 slices of pizza during the Super Bowl. And I was going to get back to the gym this week, but since I'm so sore I'll just push that to next week."

These are the same people who consider it okay to get that cheesecake after lunch because they parked 100 feet away from the restaurant as opposed to 50 feet away - "yeah, it's fine, I'll walk it off going back out to the car." Mmm-hmm. You go and tell yourself that. The truth is you'd have to walk at a breakneck pace for about 40 minutes to burn off a small slice of cheesecake. But I guess we can let that one slide - after all, it's going to snow again soon, so you'll get some more good exercise on Wednesday!

Surgeon General's Warning

Peering out the office window on a cold and dreary winter afternoon, I can't help but snicker at the crowd of poor saps huddled outside the building. They are always there at their regular intervals, not because they are locked out, but because they're smoking.

Maybe I'm going to offend a lot of people, but if you were born circa 1975 or later and you smoke, well, you my friend, suck. It's one thing if you're from an older generation when smoking was pretty much a universally accepted practice. But if you grew up in the mid '70s or later, as the anti-smoking movement really gained legs (although the United States banned cigarette TV commercials in 1971), you have no excuse to be a smoker besides the fact that you are a weak person.

Be honest. You started smoking in high school or maybe even in college, as a way to rebel against your parents and try to be cool. And maybe it worked. Maybe it made you cool in high school and launched a series of events that got you to second base on your prom night. And now you can't stop. Now you're spending 8 bucks a pack. Now you're told to get the hell out of the bar if you want to light up. Now the value of your property plummets if you smoked inside on a regular basis. Now your insurance rates are higher. Now you can't seem to get up and down the basketball court in those pickup games quite like you used to, and you always feel a bit extra tired. Now your clothes stink and your voice is starting to get raspy.

"Oh, but I have a stressful job, I need it to relax." Riiiiight (you know, you could try working out a few times a week to alleviate that stress, but you're too tired for that, yes?). "Oh, it's ok, I only have a few when I'm drunk." Uh-huh. You were weak then because you started smoking as an all-out effort for short-term social status, and you're weak now because a.) you can't admit to such things, and b.) you can't commit yourself to quitting. I love how these morons in my office, the vast majority of whom blow at their jobs as it is, take 30-45 minutes out of their day to bundle up, go out into the piss cold of January, and slowly kill themselves. So you're that committed to your little habit that you'll go through such measures just to knowingly harm yourself, but somehow finding it in you to kick said habit is "too tough?"

I find it even funnier (and by funnier, I mean terrible) when a woman gets pregnant, valiantly manages to not smoke for 9 months, and then practically has the lighter ready the second that baby is popped out of there. So let me get this straight - you were motivated enough to not harm your yet-to-be-born baby as it grew inside you for 9 months, but not motivated enough to keep from subjecting it to secondhand smoke thereafter?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to start working on opening up a hot chocolate/coffee/donut stand right next to where all the aforementioned Mensa members congregate outside the office. If everyone else is making money off of these shitbirds, then I might as well too.

License and Registration, Please - Part One

First off, this is not intended to sound like I'm pining for the ways of the world to change just so they can fit the very way that I see things. If you want to listen to liberal high-minds who think they know "the way everything should be" that would produce undisputed utopic results, then there are plenty of other forums out there. I'm not here to complain, but to observe.

There are certain activities in life, driving a car being the ultimate example, that require education, testing, and licensing in order to partake. This is done for the ultimate safety and well-being of society. What if such a testing and licensing system were made a prerequisite for several other leisure activities? I'll use the examples of working out, golf, and casino gambling, exploring one per day.

Working Out - If you are a longtime gym-goer, you dread the month of January for the influx of New Years' Resolution people. I can't blame the gym itself for offering membership deals to out-of-shape newcomers after the holidays because that's simple market capitalization. But it burns me to the core that these new dickwads come in and by their very presence take away from the experience of the paying customers that are there 4, 5, or 6 days a week all year, every year. Why do they take away from my experience? It's not because they create a crowd, because a crowded gym is still an operable gym if it has the right layout. It's because they are uninformed, oblivious to etiquette, and just don't know the ins and outs yet. I understand everyone has to start somewhere (although I'd prefer that somewhere to not be in the same room as me), but if you are walking around with your iPod on so loud that it renders you unable to communicate with others, or you count your reps out loud so that it throws off all the red-blooded Americans in there that manage to count to themselves, or you walk too close to someone while they're in the middle of a set, then you are creating an unsavory and even unsafe environment for everyone.

-----The solution: If you join a gym, you need to pass a simple, 20-question multiple choice test in order to be able to hop right in and work out at will. The test would consist of questions about etiquette and generally accepted best practices (i.e. putting the heavier plates at the bottom of the rack, putting dumbbells back in the spot that you got them from). If you don't get an 80% or more, you have to spend four gym sessions with a trainer that will show you the ropes and point things out to you, like a remedial week. If you pass that, then you now have your exercise license and are steadily on your way to being a worthwhile member. Making someone work even just a little bit for something creates a greater appreciation for the task.