Tuesday, June 02, 2009

The World Owes You NOTHING. Stop Acting Like It Does

.:I Don’t Read Neil Gaiman, But He Still Pwns:.

Yes, I know. Blasphemy. Despite that, I still believe that Neil Gaiman is awesome and deserves all the props in the world for this entry.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again... I’m getting rather sick and tired of people who feel entitled to things they really aren’t. The whole “the customer is always right” adage has been used and abused to the point that people have been spoiled. Everything’s amazing, but nobody’s happy! I don’t get it, really.

I know people are entitled to take offense, to complain, but at the end of the day, the world owes you effing nothing. You didn’t do anything to earn being alive. You were alive just because, and the world doesn’t magically owe you anything just because your conditions are less than optimal or whatever other cockamamie reason you can think up. It’s so easy to whine and to rant and to complain, but it’s so difficult to just sit down there, focus, and finally do something constructive for a change. People are entitled to complain, but the minute that’s your defining trait? Boy, you better rethink what you’re doing with your time.

I’m really glad he came out with this post, really. Because let’s face it: a lot of people feel entitled even if there is no sensible reason why they should be. When I guested on Ruffa and Ai a few weeks ago, I had people who took offense to me because I did not want to be textmates with them.

Listen, let me give you a tip: just because my cellphone number was displayed on television, it doesn’t mean you’re entitled to ask me how my lunch was at three in the effing morning. I’m a professional. I am not your monkey. I am not your bitch. If you can’t respect me as a person, then I see no reason to feel bad at being labelled as “suplado” when I don’t owe you a single mothereffing thing. You don’t feed me. You don’t know me. So take your insensitivity and find someone else to bug.

No, the customer isn’t always right. Not when they disrespect the other person, resort to insulting them, calling them names, and stepping on their dignity as a human person. I don’t get why we tolerate that kind of crap being hurled in our direction just because. As I said during the Alec Baldwin issue, people are entitled to take offense, but that doesn’t entitle them to act like idiots and resort in kind. I thought we left that stupid “eye for an eye” schtick in the Old Testament? So why are we running back to it again?

I ain’t havin’ it. This sense of entitlement crud really has got to stop. Just because people are doing their job does not give you the right to treat them less than human. We are not your effing monkeys.

7 comments:

onetamad said...

But, man, it's ASOIAF!

Kel Fabie said...

It's "a song of ice and fire"? I don't follow. :P

pwlsax said...

"I’m a professional. I am not your monkey. I am not your bitch. If you can’t respect me as a person, then I see no reason to feel bad at being labelled as “suplado” when I don’t owe you a single mothereffing thing."

Bzzzt! Logical inconsistency.

If the world owes you nothing, then people don't owe you respect. It follows, then, that we're all each other's monkeys and bitches.

Especially if we're fit to call ourselves "professionals," which in today's marketplace means "willing to kiss up or kick down, depending on status."

Kel Fabie said...

Bzzzttt!!! You are taking a figure of speech and acting as if it's the only point of the discussion.

Learn to read moar: did I say that the world should be nicer to me? No. I never said that.

What I was saying was that the world doesn't owe me anything, nowhere did I indicate that this meant that other people should stop being decent to each other and to respect each other. Since when did "other people" comprise the "world" in its entirety?

That the universe does not owe me good fortune cannot be denied.

That I am a paid professional also simply means the only time I do owe someone is when they're signing my paycheck. Again, not the world.

Seriously, man. Go read the Gaiman article before you mouth off about something you're clearly in the dark about.

Anonymous said...

coulda done without the disguised F-bombs but you make a fantastic point.....one that goes over the heads of liberals on a continual basis

Kel Fabie said...

@madgater: Seriously? That's the common liberal stance? I'm surprised, because I've often been identified as a liberal, myself.

Kel Fabie said...

@pwlsax: Dude, it takes you years to respond to a post that's just way too old for me to give a damn about.

So, not gonna bother publishing your comment because hey, I never shoved my "truth" down anyone's throat. You could have gone to any of a gajillion blogs out there, and you went to mine, and decided to get all pissed off about it. Was it too difficult to just walk away, really?