During the late 1980s, when I traveled a good deal for work, the travel and the solitary meals led to a lot of enforced eavesdropping. The spectacular aside, I noticed some patterns, and came to conclude that there are two stories that American men tell, a lot:
- I could've, and probably should've, kicked his ass, but it would have been unbecoming.
- My boss is an idiot.
An admirable example of the first story appeared in the newspapers in 1986, when Congressman Henry Gonzales punched one of his constituents at a San Antonio restaurant. The man he punched had been referring to Gonzales as a communist, speaking to be overheard. Gonzales, at the time 70, allowed that he gone easy on the man; after all, he had been a boxing champion of his college. The man punched, a flourishing youth of 50 or so, told the reporters that he could have thrashed Gonzales, but who could hit an old man?
As for the second, Scott Adams has made a fortune out of it with Dilbert. As a staple of conversation, it is almost up there with talk of the weather. Yet it leaves me with the uncomfortable feeling that it is mostly we have not found a vocation, who are putting in an honest day's work at any one of several jobs we might have held, who tell it. I don't think the members of the technical staff at the old Bell Labs were telling this story, or the engineers at Intel or Google.
Have I told these stories? Yes, you bet. Have I told them as often as I did before about 1987? I hope not.
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