I’m not a go on business trips kind of guy. I’m not really in a go on business trips kind of industry. When I visit this sorted underworld of greying, slightly overweight white men who have shitty management jobs from Tacoma, I feel like an anthropologist discovering a new tribe in the congo, the tribe all require coffee in polite little thermoses and spreads of assorted danishes.
When did America become the playground of the mediocre?
These guys aren’t rich, but with their companies’ corporate credit cards in hand they stroll down restaurant rows everywhere spending the little guys christmas bonuses, like it was monopoly money. I have never seen such a disregard for money as when I visited Syracuse on my last visit. Groups of men, exchanging handshakes and employing small talk like it was going out of style.
INTERIOR of ‘Lemongrass’ Tai restaurant. The decor is a bland mixture of Shiva statues, iron gongs, and ceremonial Tai god masks. Three people stand around the cash register waiting for their table to become ready, as a Tai waitress politely ignores them.
WHITE MAN “Hello Bob, great to see you, how was the trip? This is my assistant Sue.”
OTHER WHITE MAN “Hello Phil, great flight, love those reclining chairs. Hello Sue.”
WHITE WOMAN “Hello Mr. Pekkus, great to meet you.”
WHITE MAN “Great.”
OTHER WHITE MAN “Very Great.”
WHITE WOMAN “Great.”
There is a culture in america of people who work for big corporations and companies alike, who through frugality out the window when it isn’t their money.
It’s the I’ll have the duck mentality that is bringing this country down.
If some companies behaved them selves when their out on the town they might not go Enron-up and have the decency to spend their money with more reserve. Who pays for the indiscretion of the business man on the business trip? Who pays for the bottles of wine that, supposedly, lubricate the deal?
Not I, say the lower rung, not I.