Taking Ben Stein’s Words to Heart
Posted on 26. Jul, 2010 by lisa in Economics, Politics
I hate to sound like a broken record and be all I still don’t have a job and oh my gawd this economy sucks, but who in their right mind expects me to let last week’s Ben-Stein-Continues-To-Be-A-Jerk story slip by without comment.
Not you, right? Because you’re smarter than that.
I’ve been thinking about it. What if Ben was correct when he said that the long-term unemployed have bad work habits and unpleasant personalities and that’s why they can’t even find a job as a Wal-Mart greeter?
The bar is set very high these days at Wal-Mart. I can limbo right under it, but hoo boy, they won’t even consider giving me a blue vest.
At first it stung to read that Stein had said such a thing. I used to love Ben Stein when he had the TV show with Jimmy Kimmel and he was dry and funny just like he was in Ferris Beuller’s Day Off. All he had to do was show up and be a smarty pants elite guy and bang! He had a hit show on VH1 or Comedy Central. I’m so hurt now that I can’t even Google which channel it was so I can be accurate. More sloppiness on my part, you see. The Truth According to Stein is debilitating.
Once I set my wounded pride aside, I realized Stein had a point. You already know about my unpleasant personality. It’s chronicled on my own blog nearly every day. I’m horrid. I Gaslight my own children. I cheat at naked flashlight tag. I make the cats wait to be fed until I’m finished watching porn.
As for those other unpleasant personalities I see at the Department of Labor, well, they need to knock it off. All that being polite and pulling out chairs for each other to sit down and sharing information and making tentative, friendly eye contact because they’ve learned that who you know might just help you find your next job. Don’t they know they’re supposed to be brawling and breaking shit; gambling with their government checks and committing acts of buggery in the training room?
Instead, those job seekers are too busy dabbing the flop sweat from their brows as they browse the jobs database or reading or whispering to each other while they wait for their names to be called to remember that they are supposed to be “unpleasant.”
According to Stein, they are some nasty pieces of work. The worst of the worst. I can totally see why they got laid off. Like me, they are so awful, they don’t deserve to have jobs. Don’t blame Corporate America or this sucky economy. Blame those people who don’t have jobs, who can’t hold jobs. Isn’t that what Stein is essentially saying? If you don’t have a job and can’t find a job, the blame belongs to you and you alone.
Stein, however, he knows the truth. I’ll bet you my last ‘Nilla Wafer that he knows so much about the long-term unemployed because he spends oodles of time around the unwashed masses. Don’t let that Ivy-League-Oooh-Look-At-Me-In-My-Glasses façade fool you. He’s Man of the People right down to his pedicured-monthly toes. I can totally see him sitting at a local bar tossing back a few PBRs with Brian the Laid Off Construction Worker and Sally The Customer Care Associate Whose Job Just Got Sent to India.
Naturally, Stein’s holding them in thrall with his theories on economics and the Free Market that has just set them, um, free – from employment and paychecks.
So what if Stein is right about poor work habits and unpleasant personalities? I guess I’d better stop with the bitter and get to work on myself. Who knows? Maybe, just maybe, when the Republicans win the Congress in November and start doing all those awesome things they plan to do for this nation, we’ll finally see this country and its economy get back on track. Timing will be perfect – for me, at least. I’ll have a shiny new lobotomy personality and a certificate from the Time Management Institute of America showing in flourishes of metallic calligraphy that I finally have my shit together.
I can feel the transformation already!
11 Responses to “Taking Ben Stein’s Words to Heart”
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26. Jul, 2010
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by June Moses, June Moses, Peggy Pendleton, mommylisa, black magpie theory and others. black magpie theory said: BMT Says…: Taking Ben Stein's Words to Heart http://www.blackmagpietheory.com/2010/07/taking-ben-steins-words-to-heart/ [...]
Sadly, I know that you are essentially a workaholic. You vacuum and IRON for Christ’s sake. I know lazy and you’re not lazy.
I myself hate that fuckwad Ben Stein. I want to brain him with a hammer when I see him sitting on that bench whining about how safe and secure HIS money is, since he invested with ??? I don’t pay attention to what he’s hawking because I hate his privileged ass. I keep hoping a bus will come along and run over him before his limo picks him up.
oh for the love of Pete…
Nicely done, Lisa. Thanks for saying what I just don’t have the emotional energy to utter… mostly because I too am unpleasant and have bad work habits, I guess. Just ask anyone at the multiple-jobs-at-one-time places I’ve worked.
Oh gosh, thanks for this. Too funny and so very well written!
Please ask Shaq to slam dunk Ben into a garbage can. Thank you.
“anyone? anyone?”
I still get the yawning creepies wherenever I hear that assrocket’s voice.
Regards,
Tengrain
I’m quite sure you could do his job much better than he does and wouldn’t it be fun to know he’s down at the DoL?
susan, come work with us.
you already have the whole crow, raven, magpie thing going on as it is.
help me design a header.
and of course write.
say yes.
oh, and ben stein’s a putz.
he needs a new show where he’s a substitute teacher in a compton high school- “Jackin’ Ben Stein’s Money”
Sigh. I used to like him. But that was before I got to know him and discovered he had an unpleasant personality and really poor work habits (when was the last time you saw him do any real work?)
I wish you had a show on Comedy Central, Lisa. You’d be instantly much funnier than he ever was…
You just made Horatio Alger weep tears of joy.
stein is just another an elitist pig who hates the poor because they are lazy. one thing about the aristocracy of this country is there deep hate of anyone who is not them – and it seems the hate just gets worse. ben’s words are just as bad as a certain little austrian who hated the jews because they were “vermin”
you have to really wonder why there is so much hate in this country