The Inner Curmudgeon has a field day earlier this week. Not only was one of the two breakroom tables appropriated to samples of wickless candles, but a certain coworker apparently gave my work email to Tastefully Simple: Grrrrrrr. And what in blazes is a "Norwex party" anyway? (On second thought, don't answer that. If I expect to carry cash to a party, I'm sure I can find a kegger somewhere in this town, no?)
Really-and-for-true, I have actually built up immunities to this sort of thing over the years. Honestly. Case in point: My sister's progressed from home decorating frou-frou to Avon to scented candles. We were both still living with Mom in the frou-frou phase, so I dodged that bullet. But Avon dropped animal testing, like, 20 years ago...and thus I have a couple years' worth of loose powder under the bathroom sink. Now, I thought the candles phase had burned itself out--so to speak--until Mom unloaded half a dozen on me. And--harking back to a humbler era when resourceful 9-year-olds weren't too proud to freeze their own popsicles--I would be remiss not to mention Great Aunt Coquella, the mafia Don of Tupperware dealers.
But, you have to admit, three in one week is rather a lot to process. Too much, I fear, for my left-most brain-lobes.
Or was, at least, until I twigged into the possibility that what's going on here is basically a shadow economy. Not in the contraband, black market sense, of course. But neither do I think of it as being quite synonymous with the "egg money" or "butter money" of bygone rural Americana. And therein lies my beef with the whole business: Dropping a catalog on the table and sending out an email does not add value. Moreover, it kind of implies that I can't cook for myself. Or that my face hasn't earned its lines. Or that my home needs to smell like something other than itself (don't mind the garlic hanging in the basement). Or that my houseguests are dumb enough to be fooled by fake flowers or the anachronistic fiction of wall-sconces. (They're likely to be real anachronists anyway, who won't bat an eyelash at armor, a rapier, arrow-quiver or spear hanging out in the den.)
In my grumpier moments, I find myself wishing that the "shadow economy" would just go the full monty and just develop its own currency, already. Or maybe even to straight to a barter system (as in, "Okay, I'll trade my 'Heather Glen' votives three-to-one for your 'Fiesta Cheese-ball Spread' mixes: Deal?"). Although, after further review, that could (in our globalized supply-chain world) all-too-easily lead to a nightmare of market-rigging by unscrupulous overseas gew-gaw farmers. After all, who wants to see honest wine-glass-charm artisans shuttering the shop they inherited from their great-grandparent to beg their living in the streets? Certainly not I, for one.
In all seriousness: I like to think I've had this nailed down for awhile. To me, such "entrepreneurial" ventures are a means to make a hobby--or habit, in some cases--pay for itself. Fair enough. Though I would appreciate not having the office smell like the syrupy inside of a gas station bakery case. And not be spammed by a company from which I will never, ever buy a single product. And certainly not pay the inevitable political tax that comes with not having the same priorities as my peers. (Because--let's not kid ourselves here--we all know that peeps are keeping score on an invisible DJIA-board that might as well be posted in the breakroom.)
Sigh. That's the problem working in a shop with programmers and other linear-minded folks (e.g. CAD drafters). You start expecting humans to be all Point A-to-Point B and If-Then-Else themselves. A bad habit, that. But, alas, one I can't seem to shake. And that, in turn, is probably a compliment my co-workers in general for raising the bar.
