Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

I Hate Cary Tennis

The bosses used to monitor us on video from home, a Since You Asked column on Salon.com by Cary Tennis | Salon Life
Dear Wrapped and Confused,You are a rare individual. It is good to be rare. It is better to be rare than to be ordinary. And yet since you are rare, an ordinary job won’t do. You need a rare job. Rare jobs are hard to find.

Oh, puh-leeze!! There’s nothing “rare” about the letter-writer! Nothing whatsoever!

This advice-seekers’ problem could have been stated in a single paragraph but, typical for salon.com, the letter goes on and on…and on. Apparently, with salon, the longer and more angst-ridden the letter, the greater the likelihood of it being published. (Or maybe it’s Cary Tennis’ call — if the letter writer goes on and on…and on, he feels like it gives him a license to do the same thing.)

In case you haven’t got the time or energy to read the column, here’s a mercifully brief re-statement of the letter-writer’s problem: ‘I’m 24 years old. My current job, and the couple jobs I’ve had before his one, have been in some kind of telemarketing. I’ve come to the realization that I hate telemarketing! Like many people in their early/mid 20s, I’m feeling confused and anxious about what I’m supposed to be doing with my life. Sometimes I feel like I just want to run away from it all. What should I do?’

Simple, right? It’s a common enough sort of problem — nothing “rare” about it at all. A reasonable person might have responded with something along the line of: Take some free online personality and career aptitude tests, think hard about how you most enjoy working — not the specific job you want, but the kinds of things you like best such as working alone, talking on the phone a lot, adding up numbers, analyzing things, whatever. Find another job — it doesn’t have to be something you want to do forever — just something that will let you do more of those kinds of things you actually enjoy. THEN, enroll in a college or professional training program that will give you the credentials for doing the stuff you like best all the time at a reasonable rate of pay.

Had I been giving the advice on salon.com, I might also have added that there’s no shame in getting yourself into something (telemarketing, for example) and then discovering that you really don’t like it. It happens all the time. You just need to regroup, think hard, and start again.

Makes sense, right? Simple, straight-forward, practical advice.

That’s not what Cary Tennis is about, though. No, no… instead of reassuring the advice-seeker that their problem isn’t unusual and that it can be solved without too much difficulty, he decides to reinforce yet another young American’s absurd sense of their own specialness.

Grr. I hate Cary Tennis.

Maybe hate is too strong a word. He does, every now and then come out with a really poetic line or two, but so much of his advice column prose seems to be less about helping people than it is about stroking his own ego by way of a kind of literary masturbation. Actually — a lot of salon.com is like that. Hm.

Heh… and I write a blog.

Oh well.