...Makes the World Go Round
Over 20 years ago, I had an interview for some awful telephone directory sales job in Rochester, NY. Drove 70ish miles through a hellacious snowstorm to get there.
When I did, I learned the dumb bastard who was interviewing me sought people, as young and gullible as possible, to drive as a team from city to city and sell ads in what I guessed was new competetion for the yellow pages directory most people used.
At one point in the interview, the greedy piece of human excrement played a word association game with me to see if I was right for the job. After a few words, he threw this one at me: MONEY, to which I quickly replied, "is the root of all evil."
Needless to say, this was not a good answer for a salesman to give. The guy wanted me to gush, get all dreamy-eyed and proclaim how wonderful it is to have a lot of it, swim in it, roll around naked in piles of it. I didn't want the job. I didn't get the job.
It was one of the worst interviews I've ever had, right up there with the one at the community college in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, where one VIPs on the search committee didn't even show up and they obviously had no intention of hiring me, but thought it would be way cool to have a guy fly in all the way from Buffalo on short notice to compete. That one day trip cost me almost one thousand dollars.
I don't like money.
Y'need it to survive, but it shouldn't be an obsession. The fact that it is is proven every nite on the shameful avalanche of reality shows polluting the TV airwaves. For years, women have looked at me as a radio personality, an ad salesman, a librarian and thought to themselves "I don't want him. If I hook-up with him, I can't hope for a life of luxury." One chick in Syracuse, I think she was a Karen, seemed very, very interested in me until she found out that, at the time, I was a salesman at a furniture store. Suddenly, she ignored me, breaking a date. It was funny that she later turned up working at a synagogue in Syracuse, one where I was also treated poorly by probably the worst rabbi in North America because I didn't have the deep pockets.
It's sad that money has to mean so much and be a barometer by which people are judged.
I work with a guy who has a blog here on Blogger. Displayed prominently is a link to PayPal, where visitors are invited to donate money...to him. Recently, he posted a lengthy plea for funds/donations to the cause of himself.
I dunno, maybe he needs it. Y'always hear stories of how people's pleas for money on the Internet are answered.
For the moment, I have a job. That could probably change at the drop of a hat. I could always use more money. I'd love to drive a Lexus or a Jaguar and have all kinds of cool, expensive possessions...but I don't feel comfortable asking you for money so I can get them. Maybe someday that will change; I hope not.
Money isn't always evil. It can do some good, despite what Big Dick Cheney & Co. would have us believe.
If you like what you read here at The Mr. Nice Guy Show, feel free to make a donation to your favourite charity, or mine, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion. There are many options available and you can even give right online.
Let's think more about others, neighbours, strangers, their needs, and how we can use money to make a better world.
-M!
