Thank You So Much For Not Kissing My Ass

My parents worked hard to prepare me for the fact that life is full of disappointments great and small, and I am grateful to them for going through the effort to do this. I don't approve of all the methods they used, but at least they tried.

One of the things I was taught at a young age is that a portion of the human population is made up of ass-kissers, and man are they right about this one, and that being an ass-kisser is being less of a human being. Please do not kiss people's asses, including mine. Do not think it gets you anywhere, because a person whose ass you are kissing probably thinks less of you for it, and if kissing their ass improves their opinion of you then their opinion of anything is basically worthless.

I have known some real ass-kissers in my time, and it is a sorry sight to see these wretches at work. If you are kissing someone's ass, don't think for a second that everyone around you does not realize it is happening, and in my case seeing someone kissing ass is so nauseating that I have to turn away in disgust and out of pure pity for the ass-kisser. To me ass-kissers are like one of those Untouchable caste members in India. I have to avert my eyes. To look at an ass-kisser, especially while the ass-kissing is in progress, is like staring into the blazing sun.

I spent three years as a supervisor at one paper, and believe me I could not get away from the whole supervisory experience fast enough. I don't really care for the whole idea of "bosses," so being one was to me the ultimate hypocrisy, and I was thrilled when offered the chance to no longer be a boss. In my business, most people know what to do and can function pretty well without someone telling them to do it, and most of us function best when left to our own designs without one of these "bosses" getting involved and sticking their nose in.

Anyway, I was the metro editor at this good-sized paper in upstate New York aand had a staff of eight people or so who reported directly to me in my days as a "boss," and I am sorry to report that one of them was an ass-kisser, and it was just pathetic. I was 27 years old and this guy was about twice that, and it just made me physically ill to have him kissing my ass all the time. He had worked at the paper for about 30 years and through some kind of misfortune had become kind of simple-minded, or so it seemed. Some people say he pretended to be so in order to escape having to do work that required much of an effort, and this was not totally out of the realm of possibility.

The most entertaining theory as to his professional and mental decline was that he had untreated syphilis. The story was that he had been the office cocksman for quite a while and had contracted the disease from a young reporter and never had it treated and that it had ravaged his brain and made him both a bit slow and an ass-kisser. I cannot attest to whether he had really been a cocksman or whether he had syphilis, but these are the kind of stories that can follow you around if you work at newspapers long enough.

His ass-kissing was really shameful to see, and it pained me very much. He was old enough to be my dad, and if I was ever made aware that my own dad went around kissing his boss's ass with as much zeal as this guy kissed mine, I would have had to shoot him down like a dog and bury him in the woods in order to preserve what would have been left of his family name, for if you kiss ass like that it gets around, believe me, and a known ass-kisser does not have a name worth preserving.

I did not have an office in the newsroom; my desk was right in the metro desk area, and so if a civilian wanted to see me he would just get through what passed for security at the main door and walk right to my desk and see me. This was not good enough for Mr. Ass-Kisser, who was technically the metro desk clerk but still held the title of reporter more out of pity for his decline than for any other reason.

So what used to bug me is that when some person would come looking for me to discuss a story idea or to complain about something or for one of the other reasons that outsiders (in the news business we call these people "civilians") come to see us, Mr. Ass Kisser would vault out of his seat and intercept the visitor and ask why they were there and would offer that if they wanted to see Mr. Jarboe, he would check to see if it was possible to do so.

Christ almighty, this was horrible. I would be sitting right there, and even though I had more than enough work to do at all times I know it's good customer relations to take a few seconds out with a person who takes the time to come see you in person, even if it is about something stupid. And Mr. Ass Kisser would come over and ask me if I could see them, which of course I could, and then he would bring them over and say "Mr. Jarboe, this is Mr. Smith to see you, sir." Sir. Sir. Imagine that. I was ashamed when this guy would say this, because the visitor would infer somehow that I had made it a condition of this much-older guy's employment that he refer to me as sir. In actual fact I had told Mr. Ass-Kisser to NEVER call me sir, and to NEVER call me "Mr. Jarboe," because in newsroom environments people generally call their bosses by their first names and I did not want things to be any more formal than that, of course.

So visitors would get the impression that I was the sort of fellow who enjoyed having his ass kissed, when in fact I believe that enjoying having your ass kissed is a despicable trait. And sadly, these sort of people are always the ones who are in the position of having people pucker up to their butts all the time, and I am sorry, but you can count me right the hell out on both sides of that fucking equation. I once had a federal judge come in to talk to me about a very sensitive story, and Mr. Ass-Kisser went to every length to kiss both our asses the whole time he was there, including making an offer to run out and get coffee for us. The judge loved it because like a lot of judges he was used to having lips pressed against his ass, so he was right at home with all this.

The worst and most embarrassing ass-kissing I got from Mr. Ass-Kisser was on one fateful day when I happened to have been expecting an important long distance call about something. I was kind of up and down with a few other matters that day, so I told Mr. Ass-Kisser to make sure he took down a number and got me the message right away when the call came. He kissed my ass, even though I had told him many times not to do so, and promised to get me the message right away.

About an hour later, I was taking a short comfort break in the men's room, and I should not have to tell you what that means. And suddenly, there is a knocking on the stall door.

It was, of course, Mr. Ass-Kisser. "Mr. Jarboe, sir, that call is on the line. Would you like them to hold, or would you like me to take a message, or would you like them to call back. sir?" This is absolutely true. Two people who were hiding from life in other stalls started laughing out loud, as did another guy who was in there doing something or other at the sink.

I would think that anyone with even rudimentary clerical skills would know that you do not knock on the stall door when the "boss" is in there.I guess he had his reasons for doing it, but the biggest one was probably to kiss my ass, which as I have said before is about as pathetic an endeavor as has been undertaken since time began.

I've seen various other ass-kissers in my day, and it is painful to see, but at least I do not have to worry about people doing it to me any more, at least in my own office. Sadly, I still have to watch other people engage in ass kissing, and I have to feel the pain of people kissing my ass when I venture into the world (see entry "May I Help You, Chump?").

So do me a favor, people. Take stock of yourself right now, right down to your core, and assess whether or not you are an ass-kisser. If you are, stop it right now, and the world will be a better place for it. If you aren't, at least give some thought to going up to someone you know who is and tell them to knock it off right now. Some things are not acceptable, and this is one of those things. Stop an ass-kisser and save the world.