Yesterday--

Jim Smith made some very insightful observations about Miss Reba and how she sees herself and how she manages to cope (or not) with the stress of her work, which, of course, I managed to quickly debase into a discussion of her graceful anatomy. Despite that, I was still very impressed with Jim's abilities to pick up on all Reba's quirks, based upon my admittedly biased writings.

SO, I was intrigued when, for the price of a mere one quarter of a dollar--25 cents--two bits--Jim said he would be happy to get all Dr. Phil on me. Well, who could pass up being analyzed like that!

I mean, besides normal people.

I wrote him back and promised to send him his quarter, and agreed to hear his take on what makes me tick, WITH THE PROVISO that I be allowed to use it for a blog post. Because, you know, it's all about me.

WELL, ANYway, Jim eagerly accepted the challenge and sent me back this. He rightly predicted that I would edit out some of the stuff that sounded too laudatory, but it's mostly what he wrote with as little intrusion of my hand as possible:

You are not near as interesting as Ms. Reba. Besides, she would look better on the show. Your case is actually very simple and is seen here often in men of your age.

I don't think you would use the Dr. Phil treatment, as it would probably speak too highly of your intelligence for you to publish.

The short form is that you are working in a job that is well beneath your capabilities; you remain relatively intellectually unchallenged for the greater portion of your day. I could go on in this vein but I think I'm right.

Also, your personality is not in tune with being an administrator/bureaucrat. Promotion in its regular sense has no real meaning for you as the work would be even more boring and you would have to lead dull people. However, the money might be nice, as you have focused your attention on your family. In addition, the rule-following fits in here as you have been able to succeed within the context of the rules and have no sympathy for those who cannot. (I share this one.)

I'll give you the prescription later. Nothing in the proceeding should be taken to mean you are an intellectual snob--you might be but I doubt it, as it's rude behavior. You would seem to be in position to be snobbish as you have to be one of the [Okay, this is where I have to get out the pixel scissors--basically, Jim gave me a very nice compliment. Thank you, sir.] of anyone I know. I can speak to this as my job does let me hang out with some real heavy-duty brains. Some are OK and some are asses.

So what to do about it when blogging does not provide what is missing anymore? I have a few suggestions.

See I told you. You wouldn¹t use this as it speaks too highly of you. You also will not print "basically I'm bored s--tless." Gee I wish that would work.

First, I'll have you know that I DO have on my shirt.

Second, he's pretty darned close--what I do doesn't really require a whole lot of brain cells. As I wrote Jim back in confirmation, the only thing that is not quite right is the promotion thing--as it is right now, there is no promotion spot available. (Unless someone up and dies.) Basically, I need to go find another job. But it's hard to find one with better benefits and pay that doesn't require a huge investment of personal time beyond the normal 8 hour day. I could be a real architect as in the past, but it's nearly impossible to find a place that doesn't intrude on family time. It's also incredibly stressful.

If I could only get paid big bucks for writing inane blog posts...

As for being a snob, I think I am in one sense--I have a near pathological disdain for pseudointellectuals. As I've said before, it's not the stupid people who are the problem, it's the one's who think they're so smart. Regular folks--the ones who understand there's a difference between education and intelligence--I like them just fine.

A long time ago, one of the reasons I said that I started blogging was as sort of a proof to folks out there that even though I might be a conservative, Bible-toting, gun-owning, openly straight Southern white male government worker, I actually am smart enough to hold my own in a philosophical sort of exchange, if I wanted to.

And if it didn't make my head hurt.

But there are a certain class of folks out there aren't going to see it, even if I show them where I made a 93 on the MAT. For some folks, the ideas of open-mindedness and diversity of opinion stop well short of being able to accept that I can still be intelligent and still have a rational disagreement with them on a subject. Christian? Oh, well you must hate gay people. White? Oh, well you must be a racist. Guns? Obviously, you're a murder waiting to happen.

Yeah, whatever, Sparky.

Which is why most of Possumblog is rather mundane, or alternately, unserious. I just don't feel like messing with people who won't come off their not-so-high intellectual ponies. Life's just too short. Every once in a while, I get my dander up about something, but it's hard to have to do that all the time.

SO, anyway, thanks again to Jim for Dr. Philling me up. Although I do seem to recall such advice used to be much less expensive.
posted by Terry at 2:25:00 PM