Since No One Else Has Told You: THAT'S ANNOYING

So no, I’m not gone forever. Just returned from a week of work-related conferences. You know how that goes – boring lectures on productivity and technology integration.

Only slightly less expect was a lecture Tuesday evening on “Taking Women Seriously in The Workplace.” Despite a badly worded title, the content was entirely predictable. It had a lot less to do with how women were to be treated as industrial equals, and a lot more to do with how my having-of-a-penis made me more likely to irrationally discount people who didn’t share in such a troublesome groin condition.

But whatever, right? After years of sexual oppression, women have the right to be a little uptight and to demand workplace legitimacy.

So I walked out of the session determined to say nothing of it on this blog. That is, until I was approached by a fellow conference attendee. She seemed a normal sort – your typical, mid-twenties, single female. That is, until I noticed (and managed to cell-photograph) her nametag:


“Hi,” she said, extending her hand with the sort of sass that can only come from years of pretending to have a personality, “my name is Jenny.”

Noticing my inevitable confusion at her badge, she explained, undoubtedly for the thousandth, glee-filled time of the night, “The ‘H’ is silent, but ironic.”

The day may yet come when I hit a woman.

Ladies, I may chide you in future posts for your frequent and inaccurate delusions of male oppression and chauvinism – but if you ever feel like a man is failing to take you seriously, you have my permission to trust your instincts.

I know, it’s the 10-90% of you that give the other 90-10% a bad name. That’s always how it goes.

But there is an unmistakable and direct connection between the glamorization of artificial and needlessly (unbelievably) quirky personalities and the last few generations of women in our society.

To put things less delicately, you women have become obsessed with eccentric, “cutesy” facade... and it has GOT TO STOP, DAMMIT.

It’s a bid for attention, we all know that – either because you think your life experiences have made you deep or because you know they haven’t. What’s far more annoying is that you seem convinced that a.) it will actually succeed in drawing the attention you want, and b.) that you actually deserve any of the attention you get.

I’m not the kind of person who likes to brandish the ‘ole “people are dying of AIDS in Africa” shtick every time someone starts having a good time. But seriously, people are dying of AIDS in Africa. Pull yourself together; throw out your berets and skinny jeans and that god-awful pink handkerchief-and-matching-water-bottle. Wondering how you’ll get friends? …stop acting like a hopelessly introverted dipshit.