Thursday, June 11, 2009

Why Non-Profits Have Turned Me Into an Asshole


I worry that I’ve become more of an asshole recently. Some people might tell you that this is nothing new, that I’ve been an asshole for as long as they can remember. But I don’t think that’s true. I think it’s a recent development. And who is to blame? Non-profit organization fundraisers.

To clarify, when I say "asshole," I mean a "callous, unsympathetic, cold-hearted jerk who is generally less inclined to do unto others as he would have others do unto him." At my core, I think I’m as caring as the next guy. But when I consider how adept I’ve become at ignoring people with real problems, I have to wonder.

Coming across a lot of homeless people begging for spare change may have been the start of it all. And coming across a lot of homeless people is a city thing. If you live in a little town, you just don't encounter that many homeless people. There may be one, but he's most likely the cute, friendly drunk type who everyone likes. He probably gets taken in every night by the good townsfolk who give him a hot meal and a place to sleep until, one day, he mends his ways, sobers up, gets a steady job, becomes a generally productive member of society and maybe even marries the wholesome daughter of one of said townsfolk. In a city, you come across a lot more folks in need of some spare change. Maybe you drop a few quarters in some of their cups, but for every one person you help out, you have to pass by a whole lot more. If you tried to lend a hand to every homeless person you passed, you'd never make it to work. And then you'd probably end up homeless yourself. And to pass by one after another person who is experiencing such hardship and who needs your help, and to still live with yourself as a person, you have to develop some mechanism to cope. And that mechanism is tuning out. Ignoring another human being in need.

The more of a connection you have with a person, the harder it is to ignore him. It's easier to walk right past a person who's just jiggling a cup, a little harder to ignore someone who asks you for something directly. It really hurts to brush off a "hey champ, you got my dollar today?" or even a good old fashioned "God bless."

Non-profit street fundraisers have learned a lot from the business strategies of the homeless and have taken it to a whole new level. The fundraising strategy du jour - not a new one, but one that seems to have gotten a lot more prevalent recently is to send out swarms of cute, young, perky college kids to follow you down the sidewalk and harass you in the most charming way possible. They walk beside you and start off by saying things like "sir, I have to tell you, that is the nicest tie I have seen all day" or "wow, you have got to tell me your secret for achieving such firmly toned pectoral muscles." And if you let slide any single response, make one millisecond of eye contact, they’ve got you. Then they’re off telling lurid tales of environmental degradation and tortured puppies and bald, cancer-infested toddlers and, next thing you know, you’re bawling your eyes out and hemorrhaging cash, begging them to stay put for a few more minutes while you run to an ATM machine to empty your savings account in support of their cause.

And so, if you’re going to have any chance at all of making it from the subway to your office with dry eyes and a dime in your bank account, your ability to stave off people in need has to evolve at pace with the guerilla tactics of the non-profit world. You can try the old classics: frothing at the mouth, talking to yourself, making them think you’re crazy; flashing a gun; vomiting next to them; screaming horrible, violent threats ("I swear to God if you take one more step towards me I will rip your f-ing head off and shit down your neck"). But that takes a lot of energy / profanity / bodily fluid and is generally not how you want to start your day (and, if you’re like me, you don’t have a gun).

So you develop the stone-faced shtick, the ability to walk right past someone who’s talking to you as if you can’t hear a word he is saying. It’s effective, but it’s hard. Especially when someone is saying such lovely, wonderful things to you. When someone compliments your tie or pectoral muscles, every molecule in your body wants to smile and say "thanks!" and tell them where you shop and what gym you work out at. Even if you know they utterly don’t mean what they’re saying, and have been saying the exact same thing to every schlubby, overweight accountant / lawyer that has crossed the street in the past month, it’s hard to ignore. And here’s the point: if you can ignore a cute, young, perky college kid who’s saying lovely things to you, you can ignore just about anyone in the world, no matter how dire their circumstances or how powerful their plea. And, per my previously articulated definition, that makes you an asshole.

So what now? How do I get back in touch with my sympathetic, human side? I could move to a small town where, as discussed, there would just be one homeless guy, who was fun and friendly, and take care of him. But I like taking the subway to work, and small towns don’t have subways. I could lock myself in the house and never leave. But that might create some problems of its own. Maybe some legislation outlawing compliments that are not genuine, or outlawing non-profit fundraising altogether. That might work. But that might lead to more homeless people, and they’d probably adopt the non-profit strategies pretty quickly.

Maybe, in the end, I’ll just have to live with being an asshole.

6 comments:

Michael Zank said...

Ok. But here in JP it's more like in a small town. Not that anyone invites the people I could describe home at night or offers them their daughter in marriage, but you have the comfort of at least knowing your local from your non-local street people. That's kind of comforting. -- Here is another antidote to the assholeness that you articulate so well and that I am sure we've all observed in ourselves. Consider the regular panhandlers an opportunity to commune with the universe of which you are a part and ignore the professionals. Or if one of them gets you (as a very forlorn kid got me at the door who was peddling newspaper subscriptions with the a shtik about how this kept him from doing drugs yaddayadda, which I knew was bogus, but there he was shivering at the door), just enjoy the fact that you give them the satisfaction of having found at least one sucker that makes them feel good about how clever they are. Face it, you wouldn't want to be in his place, and for a moment you made his place a slightly less pathetic one. I am sure there is cosmic justice in all of what we do. The whole thing made me feel good about myself also because I unloaded a jacket on him that I had wanted to not wear any longer anyway. So it's all good, no?

Thanks for your excellent writing. I always enjoy it.

Rich said...

It is a volume game and one only has so much capacity. The a-hole factor is the only way to avoid drowning. Embrace it and move on.

Leila said...

But, you do really want to save the whales, right? Just checking...cause you can get a license plate that says so and we'll also send you a t-shirt, stickers...

Unknown said...

What a great writer you are! And did I mention how much more handsome you are now without the beard? And you were pretty hot with the beard, so . . . . Now that I've got your attention, can you please donate to the Send Jeniene to the Caribbean Fund. We accept checks, credit cards, debit cards, Crate&Barrel gift cards, City Sport return for credit receipts, etc. . .

Sara said...

Great post. I, too, have struggled with the conflict of wanting to think of myself as a caring human being, sensitive to the needs of the world, but then also wanting to rip the earrings out of the next perky college student who steps in my path on the way home to say "Hi! Do you have ONE minute for the environment today?!"

Anonymous said...

I know it's just anecdotal, but all my experiences, during college and after, with (young, at least) people who work in the non-profit sector tend to be huge assholes. I've never fit in with the whole "young professional" (they all seem to have dropped the "urban" part, probably because of stigma) crowd, but they've tended to be a lot more polite and friendly than those in non-profit. Self-absorbed is the most common trait I've noticed.