“Help. I’m not a violent person but every time someone says ‘How are you? How was your day?’ and other things like that I freak out and punch them.
Please help. It’s cost me every job I’ve had.”
Bob McGee
Chris’ Answer
By going around punching people, you are demonstrating a propensity to violence that suggests your statement “I am not a violent person” is in fact the result of a sad misunderstanding about the meaning of the word violent.
In fact, my theory is that you are in fact a violent person who would just prefer to keep their job for longer than the first five minutes of a Monday morning, when you rock up to work on the first day, get greeted by your new boss, lose all self-control, and break his nose with your fist.
Bob, an office job is not for you.
I suggest you take up a career as a boxer. While George Foreman requires his opponents to taunt him before he gets really mad and starts the old biffo, you’ll be swinging a left hook on the ‘hello’. You’ll be a veritable animal in the ring. You’ll be the sort of hyper-violent boxer that makes Rocky Balboa look like a fictional character in a series of movies.
Who knows? If you’re asked “What did you get up to on the weekend?” you may even join that small but highly esteemed collection of boxers who have killed in the ring. There’d be Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, Jesus “Meet Your Maker ” Chavez, and you, Bob “G’day” McGee.
Good luck, and remember, it’s jab, , jab, upper-cut, jab, cross in response to “Hello”, cross, jab, hook, jab, cross for “How was your day?” and upper-cut, upper-cut, upper-cut, upper-cut, hay-maker when you’re asked “Do you have the time?”
Liam’s Answer
There is nothing more annoying than when someone tries to engage you in idle chit-chat. It’s the conversational equivalent of musak, and it’s just as infuriating.
So I really sympathise with you when you explode and go postal. The other week, I had a similar experience. I was in the supermarket, and the checkout chick had just started to scan my stuff when all of a sudden, she asked me if I was having a good day. It freaked me out. Scanning usually happens in silence (if you can ignore that infernal beeping when the lasers hit their target) and here was a sixteen year-old pimple manufacturing plant trying to talk with me.
I tried to control myself. “OK,” I grunted.
The machine beeped. “That’s good. It’s better to have good day than a bad day,” she said, somewhat superfluously, I think even she would now admit.
“I guess,” I said.
“Well, I hope it stays good,” she said.
I punched her right on the nose.
Was I reasonable?
The jury will decide.
In the meantime, I suggest you follow my lead. Hit as many people as you can. After a while, you’ll come to know true peace. There’s no one to say hello to you when you’re in solitary confinement.
