I dun like you: The Go-Getter

I'm introducing a new series to this series... of blogs. It's about people I don't like. At all.

Now when it comes to not liking people, I'm pretty good at it. But this isn't about individuals in particular. No, everyone doesn't like everyone else at some point or another. Sometimes you don't like yourself. Sometimes I don't like myself. Sometimes I don't even like you!! It's true.

But this isn't about them. This is about the irredeemable, the ones who lack the imagination and fortitude to be anything other than a cliche. This is about those who live up to the stereotype. I'll be covering a whole bunch of them but let me start with one of the most irritating species of person: the go-getter.

Name: The Go-Getter (or the Go Getter, or the Go Getta)
Preferred Occupations: Stock broker, banker, accountant, basically any job that requires handling large sums of money not located suitcases/duffel bags)
Preffered Names: Hank, Scooter, Bruce
Average IQ: Hovers just around the level of an ox

If you've gone to a college with a fuctioning business degree program (HINT HINT HOFSTRA HINT), then you've met one. Or, at least, you've ran into one. Perhaps you've even dated one! But you do know the type.

Go-getters are the young business types, the guys who think Wall Street is a guide on what to do (though they're not the only ones who think this). Go-getters saw a guy driving a fancy car when they were little, and once they found out that it takes a shitload of money to get those cars, boom. They were off.

They used to wear pinstripes and suspenders. I suspect they still do. But nowadays it's more like an unbuttoned shirt with a PDA or ten strapped to the belt. They are always elsewhere, even when they're alone. Go-getters imagine life as one big ladder, and since there's a ladder there, well, I guess that means they're supposed to keep climbing it.

What differentiates go-getters from other people who have this mindset is that go-getters are not at all good at what they are or are trying to do. A successful go-getter morphs into a Jones (a subject for another day). But most go-getters never succeed because they are :takes a deep breath: DOG. STUPID.

Let's break this down more organizationically.

1. It's all about them. The word "myopic" was invented to describe the go-getter, except their myopia is focused on a mirror. That is how tightly wound their worldview is. Sure, go-getters are aware of other things in life, perhaps even in other people, but at the end of the day the brain defaults to whatever it is they're on about.

You can observe this whenever go-getters are pretending to engage in human communication. The subject is about them. If the subject is not about them, then the subject quickly turns into how they are better at the subject than everyone else. Because go-getters have a hypercompetitive mindset, everything discussed has to be done in terms of making the go-getter look competent. So the story you had about the time you had noodle soup at Cape Cod? Well one time they were in the Hamptons and they found ramen on the beach AND THEY ATE IT. Ladies, feel free to remove your pants... now.

This myopia fortunately prevents them from establishing many (if any) meaningful bonds with other people, so marriage usually is out of the question (date rape, sadly, is not). Sure, go-getters have "friends," much like oxen hanging out in the herd, but that doesn't mean Mr. Bulltits actually enjoys the company of Mr. Horny. Go-getters view human interaction as a means to an end, so the most affection you can expect from a go-getter is brown-nosing (and that's only if you're richer/more powerful than they are).

2. E-mo-tions...? A lot of people like to shit on sociopaths for being emotionless. That's not fair. At least sociopaths are aware of their condition and, like Dexter, try to at least appear to have emotions so as to throw off the cops.

Perhaps go-getters are also aware that they seem to lack any and all emotional content, but even if they are, they simply cannot handle the whole having a personality thing. I've seen Asburgers cases have a wider range than they do.

What's the main issue here? Observe go-getters in a room, perhaps at a bar, having something called a "conversation." Now, when you and I have conversations, stuff happens like you say a thing, and I listen, and then I say a thing, and then you dry your hair, and then I eat some cookies whilst waiting for you to finish, and then I fall asleep, and then you wake me up, and then [censored] followed by [censored] and then you take off [censored] while I [censored] my [censored] [censored].

Not so with go-getters. I established earlier how they engage in constant one-upsmanship, but that's only half of it. When they're talking about something that they can't prove they're better at than someone else, they kinda just half-ass it. Take sports, for instance. It's extremely easy to talk to a go-getter about last night's basketball game. "Oh yeah, I love the Knicks," one will say.

Leaving aside issues of fair-weather-fandomness or shit like that, the next thing you would do is ask them something like who their favorite player is. If you guessed that their favorite player is either a) the most popular player the team in question ever had or b) the current superstar of the team, congrats, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Go-getters only consume enough information to allow themselves a semblance of functionality. So yes, they are aware that there is a sport called "basketball" and there is a team called "the Knicks" and that from time to time they play other so-called "basketball teams" in competitive games. But that's it. They can't name rosters, or say where they were when the final run was scored in the 1995 ALDS (FUCK YOU GRIFFEY. FUCK. YOU. I HATE YOU. I was on my bed sitting next to my radio by the way). Since none of those things involved making money, the details are irrelevant, and they have no emotional connection to them. And that's just about sports! Pick anything else! TV, art, Play-doh, Light-brites, they have no connection to them!

And that, as they say in the movies, Is Just Creepy.

3. I'm a man! I'm 24! The worst thing about go-getters is that they have below-average intelligence. They really do. Don't throw that "B-b-b-but, my love, they have MBAs!!!" Rote memorization and finagling with computers doesn't make on intelligent. Believe me, I've got enough experience dealing with these types.

Intelligence is not defined merely as being able to retain information. Animals can retain information, but we haven't (yet) elected Kinku the Chameleon as president. (Don't write him off for 2012.)

What makes this aspect even worse, though, is that go-getters mistake hard work with accomplishment. How do you know that society is operated by go-getters? When shit like this becomes the norm. Go-getters share many traits with other kinds of dipshits, but nobody else is willing to put up with 60, 70, even 80 hour work weeks, and least of all to have the gall to act like this is admirable.

Go-getters labor under the assumption that the harder the work, the better they are. I know everyone is indoctrinated into believing that work hard = good person. Go-getters don't understand why that is, though. People reward honest effort, where someone sacrifices themselves (or others, if they're playing chess) for a worthwhile objective. There's a huge difference between a surgeon working overtime during a medical emergency and a go-getter sitting in an office clicking around a computer doing retarded business work that nobody asked them to do and, frankly, aren't necessary even in some abstract bullshit business sense. Yet they do it anyway.

Do you know what else does that? Beasts of burden. Donkeys and camels and llamas and rabbits carry shit because, well, that's just what they're supposed to do. But at least they have an excuse, in that they're animals and that they have nothing else better to do and also because you can race them. But go-getters willingly become beasts of burden, not merely just to make money, but also because that makes them better people.

Last night, at the company Christmas partay, one of our peeps had to step out to answer a business call. Yup. I'm almost positive the person on the other end of that conversation was a go-getter, because who else would be working at 7:15 p.m. on a Thursday night? And who else would think that someone else wants to conduct business with them at 7:15 p.m. on a Thursday goddamned night, goddammit?

The worst part is that go-getters don't even wash out or burn out anymore. This is why international finance is screwed up so much. Hell, this is why business in general is screwed up. Many go-getters who used to get stuck on the trading floor have risen up, sometimes even to be CEOs and shit. Now everyone is expected to work 60+ hours because, well, what else is there to do?

One day, we're gonna have out first-ever go-getter president, and then things will really be screwed up. BlackBerries will be fused into our chests. Everyone will be required to carry a shitty, beaten-up, seven-year-old laptop "just in case something important comes up." Vacations will only be allowed in designated vacation zones (i.e., cubicles in the Bahamas). Also, no more sleep for anyone, ever.

And I don't even want to think about what'll happen with our first ever go-getter Pope. (Mandatory stained-glass backgrounds for all BlackBerries, for starters.)