A note to certain of my co-workers: if working for a large corporation so offends your sense of ethics that it becomes the only thing you can talk about — or think about — all day, do you maybe need to ask yourself at some point why you continue to accept that tainted paycheck every week instead of just moving along and doing something else?
It’s just a thought…
Yes, like many San Francisco residents, I work with a number of annoying anarchists. Actually, they’d probably be more inclined to refer to themselves as “individualists” or “non-conformists”. Evidently, individualism is defined by a need to recite recycled dogma on an hourly basis and to have as many tattoos and vaguely repulsive piercings as possible, while non-conformity means ignoring rules just because they’re rules and questioning all authority just because it’s authority.
Mind you, despite this focus on the individual, there is a community focus too. It usually seems to involves parking one’s obligatory, non-polluting, non-conformist bicycle in a narrow passageway INSIDE the office so as to make it more visible to the less-evolved (who take the bus), not to mention to create as much of a safety hazard as possible to anyone who might damage himself on its protruding handlebars. Like me. At least once a week…
I keep reminding myself that they’re young, idealistic poseurs who will eventually grow up and get slightly less annoying. But they probably won’t, particularly here in the insulating womb of San Francisco, where non-conformity is a fashion statement and individuality is rewarded (tolerated) only when it poses no threat to — nor asks any questions of — “the community”…