Reason #42,765 Why Marketing People are Swine.

Those who know me know that I have a distaste for marketing and advertising and the people who find the career option attractive. The distaste could be expressed with certain words..."frothing hatred" maybe or "jihad worthy of al-Qaeda" or maybe "kill 'em all and let the gods sort 'em out." Taking a class in marketing has done absolutely nothing to dispel this view of the marketer's profession---I still hate the subject and people who espouse it with a sharp burning passion. Note that this hasn't stopped me from pulling a 97 average in the class, and I may well be en route to an easy A if I keep it up. Considering I think marketing people are complete fucking morons, however, the class's cakewalk level of difficulty thus far may say more about the subject than about me.

Still, I have no great interest in classical music and minimal interest in anthropology but I'm doing just fine (enjoying myself, even) in my other two classes. So why the bug up my ass about marketing? Glad you asked.

Yesterday we had a group activity (if you're familiar with the "Apples and Oranges" game as it relates to international business, you know exactly what I'm talking about---if not, I won't bore you with the details). It was supposed to represent cross-cultural communication, but it was basically a lot of REALLY uncomfortable violating of my personal space to the point where I'm not so sure TMCC's policies on inappropriate contact and possibly sexual harassment weren't violated in the process. I expressed my reservations with and disapproval of the task I was asked to do but I was ultimately coerced (and there is no other word for it) into participating---in hindsight I should've said "ding me a few points for class participation if you must, but if you do I will file a grievance with the school about it." I don't know if the business faculty gets any kind of "sensitivity training", but for a student who is extremely introverted (to the point where I suspect there's an undiagnosed autism-spectrum disorder in my brain somewhere---even my wife gets sick of me because I need so much personal space and I'm so mercurial)...let's just say (and I did say during the exercise, out loud, and got a hearty laugh from the group) "waterboarding would be over quicker and probably do less lasting damage."

It just became a LOT harder for me to adequately participate in that class to the degree expected of me by the course requirements because once my trust and sense of safety with my personal space is violated like that, my brain tends to develop a powerful aversion to further contact with the source of the stress. Thankfully I'm high-functioning enough not to, say, drop the class (goal accomplishment trumps emotional needs, at least in the short-term, and "two and a half weeks left" is pretty short term), but I am very angry and uncomfortable with the whole experience and if forced socialization comes up again I'm standing my ground and if it means I get a B instead of an A, it's not like I have a scholarship to defend. Leave it to a business-department dolt to be completely unfamiliar with the concept of "introversion"---the fact that I'm not a money-grubbing weasel makes me one of a kind as a student of business. I just want to play with arithmetic. I couldn't care less about chasing the big salaries...I'll be happy if I can support myself, my wife, and possibly a couple of kids.

In other news: My wireless mouse just died (battery needs replacing), it's humid as hell because of 12 straight rainy days (and the fact that the sun came out after the rain this morning means it's hot besides---when did I move back to Boston?), and a woman just walked by wearing a low-cut top, a push-up bra, and she had a pair of the most blatantly fake boobs I've seen in quite awhile---she looked to be in her late forties (possibly over fifty) but they were perkier than an eighth-grader's (You say your name's Chris Hansen? I should have a seat over there?) I don't make a habit of staring at women's chests, but when something like that crosses my path at eye level (since I'm sitting down writing this), I'm gonna notice. Consider me squicked out.