Because I identify as working class and am largely self-educated, I have a bad and visceral reaction to being patronized. Dealing with difficult people is all part of eating the whale's asshole, in any job—but some days I can deal with it better than others.
Today was one of the others.
Part of it is the nature of the gig. I work in the research-and-development arm of a major provider of digital imaging and reproduction equipment (which shall remain nameless—but it starts with an X), and my job is basically to be the village idiot; I beat up the product until it breaks, then beg for some kindly engineer or software developer to come get me out of the terrible mess I, in my ignorance, have made. In this way the weaknesses and failures of the product are exposed; but you can see where a degree of indignity is built into the system.
Now, the engineering and development teams are generally decent enough folks¹: but there is one fellow²—one is particular—who is bright, charming, charismatic, and often unbearably smarmy, prone to treating me with the affectionate condescension usually reserved for a retarded eight-year-old, and thereby filling me with a raging desire to FUCK HIM WITH KNIVES AND SHIT IN HIS LUNGS³.
A working-class hero is something to be.
But for once I'd like to try being something else.
¹ A blatant lie. They're bastards all.
² i.e., all of them, really.
³ © and ™ Warren Ellis.
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