Monday, November 19, 2007

Am I a bad person?

Some people might say so. For the most part, though, I think that's because they lack my...ah...unique sense of humor. If I'm laid-back enough to be capable of finding humor in virtually any topic, does that make me a bad person? I honestly don't think so. To be perfectly honest, I have nothing against the handicapped, and I don't think the Holocaust was realistically humorous to any extent. But I get a ridiculous amount of amusement from making jokes that I know are grossly inappropriate, because people's reactions to them are amazing. But I've come to terms with my sense of humor long ago. That's not what led me to ponder the question I posed in the title.
Working in a movie theatre (or any part of the service industry, for that matter) has the profound effect of causing a person to realize that they truly and utterly fucking hate people. Now I knew this about myself long ago, but going to work just helps remind me every now and then (READ: every time a customer opens their mouth and speaks). I absolutely abhor people. Not any specific group of people, mind you; I'm no racist. I just hate humanity in general. Or maybe that's a tad too broad. What I mean is that I loathe the American public.
Every time a customer walks past a bright yellow wet floor sign, slips, and complains that the floor is wet, I want to cause them immense amounts of pain. Every time somebody stands near the closed side of the concession stand, with a plethora of individual "closed" signs on each register, supplemented by a gigantic sign reading "This Side is Closed" right in front of their face, and waits for a good five to ten minutes for somebody to take their order, I get a nigh-irrepressible urge to bash some literacy into their idiotic skull. I never do it, mind you. I'd rather keep my job. All I'm saying is that I have a very low tolerance for idiocy and ignorance.
A violent response would incredibly stupid, and I would never give the customers the gratification of stooping to their level. Instead, I take a good amount of joy in exercising what little authority I have as a minimum wage slave to make the lives of particularly annoying people as inconvenient and, if I can, as close to miserable as I possibly can. Case in point: I'm standing there, checking tickets for Saw IV, when a particularly cocky group of teenagers saunters past, triumphantly holding up their tickets and walking past me towards the auditorium doors. This is where a wickedly gleeful grin springs to life on my face as I coolly say, "I'm gonna need to see some ID." At this point, all three of them get the "oh shit" look on their faces as they turn around and try to think of excuses. The first one says he has his school ID, but is quickly disheartened when I point out that that doesn't actually display his age. The second doesn't have any ID at all. The third is a girl who looks like she couldn't be more than thirteen years old, and she claims to have left her drivers license in the car. Needless to say, I greatly enjoyed watching them wait in the lobby for me to stop paying attention so they could sneak back in. Eventually they just wised up and left. I laughed. It felt good.
Call me petty if you will, but I do take a sense of satisfaction from doing things like that to people that I just instinctively dislike. I also enjoy enforcing the theatre policy of not making change at the concession stand and kindly asking guests to go to the box office for their change. Especially after watching them wait in line for fifteen minutes. But I think I'm justified in taking some pleasure out of making their lives difficult. After all, people do the same to me. They complain about all manners of mundane bullshit and insist that I should do things exactly the way they want. But my distaste for people doesn't just come from my job. I get paid to deal with that, so, at the end of the day, it's (albeit barely) tolerable. What really pisses me off is society in general.
What's not to hate? People are the cause of every major problem in the world today. Wars, inequality, racism, they can all be traced back to human greed, intolerance, or ignorance. People (not everybody, but as a generalization) are unwilling to consider the validity of cultures other than their own. They refuse to believe that a life other that the one they would choose to live can be any good, and the ones in power try to force their views on the ones who aren't. People kill each other for no good reason other than money or power, something that the uncivilized beasts of the animal kingdom never do.
So when it comes right down to it, yes, I do hate people. I hate their intolerance, their closed-mindedness, their injustice, their blind conformity, their tricks, their lies, and their greed. But does disagreeing with everything that's making society rot really make me a bad person? Because if it does, that the world is more fucked up than even I thought.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

I disagree I don't think you hate humanity, I think you just need to get out of America seriously the people in this counrty are assholes.

Unknown said...

Please keep in mind I don't hate America I hate Americans.

Willows said...

Oh no. I really do hate people in general. I'll agree that people here are assholes, but I just don't like people. I think the world would be a much better place if there were a lot less of them, particularly the idiotic, ignorant, and intolerant ones.

Unknown said...

Crazy crazy Christians.

Willows said...

I have nothing against Christianity, or any other religion, really. My only problem is with people who refuse to be open-minded and accept that they can't force everybody to believe what they do.

Unknown said...

I'm not trying to bash all Christians but a lot of them are extremely closed-minded and quick to point the finger.

Willows said...

I'll admit that much. And those people are retarded. Personally, I'm Catholic, and I'm fine with most of the religion's actual teachings. I just disagree with the way they try to demonize damn near everyone who doesn't fit into their idea of a perfect human being.

Unknown said...

Well yes you are a nice, kind, and generous person, but you don't love Jesus to hell with you.

Willows said...

I disagree.

Unknown said...

If you look throughout history that is what has been going on the only way that they ever did it differently is when they were able to convince natives to convert religions.