Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Social Retardism

Just when I thought I had left the location with the most amount of social retards... I'm reminded that it's not necessarily the number of social retards at your location, it's the severity of the social retardism as well.

There's a lady here at work that goes to such drastic measures to keep from having to communicate. I walked into the kitchen area here, and she was waiting at the microwave facing toward me. I was in the kitchen for just a few minutes, however, she managed to turn completely around, put her back to me, and stare at a wall instead of having to potentially say "good morning". Yes, just a simple good morning and she couldn't do it.

I like to call this Social Retardism. And she seems to have a severe case of it.

I sure hope I don't suffer from Social Retardism. I'll say "hi" and "hello" with the best of them, I don't care if it's the Pres, VP, the janitor, or the security guard. I want folks to remember me. I want folks to show me the same kind of respect that I show them. At the end of my career here, folks will only have one thing to say about me, and that's that I was kind and friendly to everyone equally.

I will have to do a little more reconnaissance work regarding this thing I call social retardism. I hope that my findings in this study will help some of those that suffer from it, figure out a way to get past it. I plan to develop my theory of what all encompasses this thing I call Social Retardism in the next few weeks or months.

One thing I can quickly spout out as another example of what can be considered social retardism, is the person in the crowd at the table that no matter what the conversation is at hand, they will continually throw in things that are completely random and unrelated. Generally these things point back to them directly. I guess 1-upping can be considered a level of social retardism. The person that is 1-upping cannot determine for themselves that it is inappropriate to tell a 1-up story at that point in time.

A definition I like from Urban Dictionary for retard is "An offensive term used to refer to someone acting in an irritating or generally stupid way." I see a social retard as someone that 's irritating and generally acts in stupid ways. Social retardism is spawned from there being a social norm and then there are these folks that cannot function within that socially acceptable norm.

I don't want everyone to fit in a perfect mold, of course not. Then life would be boring. I would like for folks to consider that they have a case of social retardism and change their path in life by learning to communicate.

Okay, stepping off the soapbox for a bit to go back to work.

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