According to various pop psychologies and drunken discussions over


too many bottles of Old Froth and Slosh,

there are a sort of peoples known as "users".

They can kinda suck the juice out of life, and then come back

and ask to borrow some more.

Then there are the people known as "enablers", the ones who allow

the "users" to continue to breath normally.

Finally, there is you, the "codependent". It's all your fault.

Don't argue with me. It is. I don't know why and I suggest that

you don't try to find out either, but that's the way it is.

The enablers are management, parents, or teachers.

The "users" are your siblings, co-workers ¹ and fellow students.


You can set out on your day, prepared for every eventuality that

you can imagine, and end the day wanting to tactical nuke every

acquaintance you can think of, because they have been "borrowing"

from you all damn day long.

Pencils, paper clips, note paper, printer cartridges, pens, erasers,

wrenches, plastic tableware, nose tissues, butt tissues, lip balm,

jumper cables, money, ideas, light, water and oxygen all find

their way from your farsighted grasp into the giant maw of

the hungry gestalt that feeds on the acquisition of objects,

thought, and energy, sucked from the lives of the righteous.

People who have had training, education, work experience, and

the genius necessary to rise to the upper crust of the floating

scum of industry somehow seem not to have acquired the need to

actually prepare themselves for their assigned tasks.

So, often, the task goes begging, while they go begging for the

materiel they need to begin to consider performing the task.

Meanwhile, YOU are doing what you are supposed to do, what you

were trained to do and hired to do, in, above, and around the

constant interruptions from the above-mentioned.

Now, you might ask yourself, why can't the company, school or family

get rid of the dead weight so that people like YOU can do their

jobs more efficiently. Why can't everything just go along smoothly

without these human speed bumps impeding progress?

Because they, believe it or not, are "tools" also.


That's right, don't touch that dial.

Stay tuned for the most important message you have ever received

in your life. Get a pencil and pad and take this down in big

block letters:

Incompetent people are the deadwood in the river of life and work

that management uses to build dams between them and those who

actually know how to do their jobs. The folks who don't have enough

sense to open a can of beer without a weekend seminar in the use

of a pull-tab are a vital part of the mechanism of society.

They are easily acquired, easily disposed of ²,

easily fooled, easily moved about like chess pieces on a

cribbage board, and just as easily sent to your neck of the woods to make your

life a living hell just as you were beginning to gather evidence

that your immediate supervisor wasn't really sure what your

company does to earn it's keep.


The only remedy to all this hoi and polloi is to quit the corporate

rat race and open your own business. When you are to blame for

everything, you will understand why you might need a buffer of

unflappable insufferability between you and the rest of the world.

Just do your best not to peeve your best employees. Secretly

let them pick on the idiot squad by providing them with bad
office supplies chosen specifically for that purpose.