dreadedmonkeygod . net

I try to have compassion for everyone. I understand guys trying to make their way in crap jobs. But when someone says, "I've repeatedly asked you not to call," and in reply you ask, "Would you like the Daily News delivered to your office or to your home?" I'm going to calmly make you hate me, your boss, your job, and your life, and I will have fun doing it.

I learned how to fight dirty from an ex-girlfriend. I'll be rude and arrogant and entitled. I'll interrupt you, ask you unfair questions, tell you straight out that you're not very bright, and cite your enraged silence and lack of a quick return as proof that you're an imbicile. I'll tell you that not hanging up on me is further proof you're an imbicile. And then I'll remind you that you owe it to me as your customer to stay on the phone and take it. I'll ignore all your defenses, hammer that "you're an idiot" button a few more times, and leave you sputtering and weak and hating me so much you need to take a deep breath and go have a smoke.

Why? Because it's not okay to be actively amoral. It's not okay to try to make a living by bothering people and ignoring their requests that you go away, please. When I tell you that I've asked the Daily News not to call, and you say, "Well, how do I know what you told some other guy?" then you clearly need greater parental involvement, and I don't mind making you call me Daddy for a few minutes.

However.

Maya Angelou was once on the set of a movie, and emerged from her trailer to find two young black men screaming obscenities at each other and getting ready to fight. She walked up to one of them and said quietly, "Can I speak with you, please?"

"This mother(*$%*#@^...--" he started.

"I understand," she said. "But can I please talk with you a moment."

Again he started screaming at the other man.

"Don't you know," she asked him, "that our ancestors lay spoon-fashion in holds of ships, chained to each other, lying in each other's excrement, and urine, and menstrual flow, so that you could live two hundred years later?"

The young man started in again, "Yeah, but he--"

"Don't you know that your grandfathers stood on auction blocks, so that you could be here?"

The man started to quiet down, "You don't understand--"

She said, "When was the last time anyone told you how important you are?"

Tears welled up in the man's eyes, and they talked for a while.

The man was Tupac Shakur, and his mother later called Dr. Angelou to say that she had probably saved her son's life.

So, I'm trying to remember what Dr. Maya Angelou teaches us about compassion, but all I really know today is what my ex-girlfriend taught me about fighting dirty.