Trust in an otherwise cut-throat world

A man must never be too good for his barber. I just made that up while simultaneously deciding to live my life by it. Path shaking epiphany though it has been I feel I have believed this all my hair-borne life.

I made the mistake of going to one of those up-market salons a while back. I had just started earning money and hair seemed like a good place to start trading up. Little did I know there would be plenty of judging and smirking as my new ‘stylist’ sifted through my hitherto rudimentarily managed locks with a disdain reminiscent of my high school biology teacher, evaluating my best attempt at drawing a hibiscus. I must confess that to this day I have never been required to draw another hibiscus nor see this need arising in any foreseeable future. I can, however, sketch an admirable orange.

But back to barbers.

Once done with my new haircut, I proceeded to shell out 6 times the amount I would normally pay for what looked like the same product as dished out by my local barber. My stylist assured me that if I took a really close look at my hair I would notice that each strand had been cut at a specific angle (he didn’t mention the degree – yes, I did ask). This, he explained to me – half condescending, half utter revulsion – was the hallmark of a good haircut. To what end? I wondered. Anyone coming close enough to assess the angle at which each hair was cut would qualify as just creepy. And I don’t see why I paid 6 times my normal rate so creepy would think more highly of me and my hirsute pedigree.

When I did go back to my local barber, not 4 weeks later, he had shut shop. I like to think the loss of my custom did not influence this in any way. I also like to think about clouds – or as I sometimes call them to scare myself ‘floating oceans’ (shudder!).

So I hunted for a new barber and after wandering aimlessly for more than 8 meters, I found one. It was below ground level, well lit, had many chairs, which were all empty, and one very bored looking barber. I am to this day amazed that so many people, who look quite ordinary from the outside, possess the magical skill to cut the hair from a human head without ruining it completely. At about 12 haircuts a year for 28 years, I’ve come within snipping range of many a barber – well over a hundred, I’m sure (I’ve moved around a lot). That none of them have ever given me a ‘bad’ haircut says something. Or at least, it says something about my low benchmark for personal style. Either way, with a new barber, I’m always wondering if the odds have finally caught up with me this time and if I will in fact spend the next few weeks under a hat (of shame, that is. I would never wear a real hat; they can’t be trusted).

As I dealt with this trying and rather incongruous assessment of my new barber’s skills, he kept snipping, unaware of the turmoil that raged within me.

And then he pulled out the blade.

All anxiety of the upcoming quality of my hairdo was left in abeyance as I now focused on my other (and arguably more vital) ponder-point. How do we regularly allow a stranger to hold a blade to our necks without the slightest bit of fear? I mean, yes, he is a barber and yes he does do this for a living. But we wouldn’t be judged for being a little extra wary of the guy tying our bungee jumping cord and after all – how much more qualified is a barber than the guy who ties the bungee jumping cord? Did he go to barber school where they’re required to take the barber equivalent of the Hippocratic oath? I doubt it. He could just do what he wants. He could slice my jugular, or he could just walk around with an AIDS blade and nick people for the fun of it. I don’t know – I’m imagining stuff here, but blades are scary bits of evil. Even scarier than clouds maybe!

Now usually, the barbershop is full. So I soothe my grievances with the knowledge that if the guy did intend to slit my throat, there would be witnesses. So perhaps he’d be careful not to. Unless they were a whole team of murdering barbers - but who would coordinate that? The logistics would be mind-boggling. Customers don’t come all at once. Some even have an annoying person waiting outside the barbershop giving instructions. And some have beards. You can’t kill a guy with a beard – they just don’t die. No – I don’t think murdering barbers exist. But murdering barber in an empty barbershop? Maybe. He may have a whole room full of dead people at the back with half-haircuts (or maybe he finishes cutting the hair after killing them. I suppose that would be the least he could do right?).

I looked around for signs of blood – there were none. I felt a little more relaxed. I tried to look deep in my barber’s eyes through the mirror. But everyone knows the soul does not reflect off glass, so I turned around to look him deep (and soulfully) in the eyes. This was obviously new to him and I can’t say it wasn’t a little awkward overall. But no – he didn’t seem like a killer. But what the hell do I know? Chances are you only meet a psychotic killer once. And then he/she kills you. It doesn’t leave a lot of opportunity for a thorough character mapping.

As it happens I didn’t run out of there screaming. Impressed? Well, so was I. In times like these one must hold ones nerves or one gets a semi-haircut. My new barber finished off and brushed all the extra hair from my shoulders. We then proceeded to do the closing dance of the barbershop – where he holds a mirror behind me at different angles and I nod appreciatively at the back of my own head.

Then it came time to pay him, so just to be sure he would not follow me home and kill me, I paid him 6 times what he asked.

As I said – a man must never be too good for his barber.

Networking and the Modern Day Misanthrope

There are a billion personal interactions that we make during a lifetime. As kids, we start by meeting people at play school, then on the playground, in the class room, at the movies, in college, during graduation, at work, at meetings, in the nightclubs, at weddings, at funerals…




For the typical misanthrope this must be absolute torture. It's possible to be secluded for a short period of time. People will call you an introvert, but then you won't hear that much because you never meet them. But shunning society altogether is something requiring life altering arrangements in epic proportions.




The modern day misanthrope is not however looking to shut out everyone. He admits - and this is the tough part - that there are some people with whom he needs to interact and some with whom he simply will not. The list of the latter is by no way finite or static. You could, for example, add 'plumbers' into your list (though, having recently fixed a toilet, this may not be the wisest choice) and find the list suddenly exploding because you happen to be staying in the same hotel where the 'Plumbers Convention' has chosen to base itself. More sensibly you could add 'people with hyphenated surnames' to your list and dissolve yourself of the risk of ever meeting individuals odd enough to allow a dash to be part of their names.




I came across the word 'networking' in a rather rude way. It was at a party which, being the modern day misanthrope, I had obviously been dragged to. In this case the perpetrator was an uncle who had taken it upon himself to turn me into the life of every party I set foot in. On this, one of his many unsuccessful nights, my foot was firmly set in the corner of the room. At such times I like to amuse myself by observing different people and trying to decide which animal they most resemble. It was at such a juncture (I had the lady in the far corner pegged as an emu) when a gentleman I could only describe as an East African Water Bison stomped my way. He was a friend of my uncle's and appeared to have been recruited by the former in his efforts to turn me into the future king of the playboy mansion. He initiated conversation with a loud grunt (thereby freezing his animal of choice in my mind) and started off about how at my age he was setting the dance floor on fire. This, of course, conjured up images of fires and crumbing foundations in my head (the man was gargantuan; you could hardly blame my mind for wandering). It was amidst the rubble (in my mind) that he unleashed a simple statement that would go on to torment me endlessly.




"Son, you have to network; Its not what you know… it's who you know"




I can't remember why he said it - though in retrospect I probably had it coming. The words hit me across the face like a wet sock, leaving me stunned.




It is imperative to outline the fundamental (and most agonizing) point of that statement. It was true. That's what really made me uncomfortable. Everywhere I looked after that I saw examples of the bison's proclamation. As if the words had drooled out of his mouth and followed me wherever I went in order to prove he was right. Executives, shopkeepers, delivery boys, people with hyphenated last names… They all seemed to survive merely by pleasing the right people - nothing more.




For a modern day misanthrope this comes as an absolute shocker, a spanner in the works. Here I was, thinking I had things well sorted out; that society could operate background as I did great things with my life. Suddenly, it was looking like I had missed the bus completely. That I actually needed people to get ahead and I'd not even started getting to know anyone.




And thus began my quest for the holy grail of networking for the misanthrope. In a nutshell, I needed to make amends, but not at the expense of meeting too many people I didn't want to meet.




There's only one way I knew how to approach the issue - academically. I began to categorize people into different buckets. People I liked, people I didn't like, people who annoyed me - but I still liked, people who were really helpful - but for some reason I couldn't stand (this was odd - does it ever happen to you?). People, who were useful to know, people who pretended they were useful. People I was related to, people I had no connection to, but somehow felt related to. And so on..




It took me a while to come up with the following theory:




There are 4 kinds of people in this world derived by mixing and matching two sets of characteristics.




The first set - Skunks and Seals - relates to whether you can stand the person in the first place.




Skunks: the school bully, that pompous guy you meet at the gym, the cousin from abroad who flaunts his foreign toys. In general, skunks are people you just don't get along with. Sometimes you try; sometimes it's obvious from the start that it's not going to work. Generally you want to make any excuse to avoid meeting them.




Seals: your best friend, the guy you meet at the grocery store and end up talking to for an hour, your colleague from work with whom you make it a point to have lunch. Seals are the opposite of skunks. They're the ones you actually like hanging out with - for no reason other than that you feel happy in their company.




Both seals and skunks derive their designated roles purely by virtue of who they are by nature - nothing to do with their position in society or in your life. It's important to highlight that this is all relative. I've seen a gathering of skunks and I'm sure they thought of each other as seals. You may even have two seals who view each other as skunks. It is an entirely 'self-referral' snapshot of society.




The second set - Czars and Bums - draws on how useful a person is to you.




Czars: your boss, your rich uncle, your high school professor on whose recommendation you get into the college of your dreams. Put mildly, czars influence - or have the capacity to influence - your life. They are the reason networking is necessary because it's them you need to keep happy in order to get ahead. It takes a lot for a misanthrope to admit to such a truth, but it's necessary.




Bums: Mostly, bums are people who have little or no influence on where your life is headed. They would be entirely uninteresting if not for two factors. Firstly, a bum may not know he is a bum and spend his time trying to be a czar or may have realized he is a bum, but pretends to be a czar in any case. This, if caught early, is rather amusing. If not you could spend your time trying to please him without realizing what an utter waste it is. Secondly, a bum could become a czar by some cruel twist of fate, leaving you to rue the times you ignored him completely.




The distinction between the two allows one to decide who is worth schmoozing with. True, you may get it wrong and find your czar is really a bum and vice versa. But assuming you have enough good sense to distinguish one from the other and assuming fate is not cruel enough to swap the two by circumstance and leave you in the lurch, it's a pretty good roadmap for a misanthrope who wishes to be choosy about who he interacts with.




Putting it all together gives an interesting picture (see exhibit below) and allows us to illustrate the 4 basic people types for networking.

Skunk-bums: worst of the lot. It's a wonderful feeling to not want to go for a party (for lack of enthusiasm) and find that you can blow it off because the guest list comprises largely skunk-bums. The sooner you identify this lot - the lot more time you will have for more useful things.




Seal-bums: most of our really close friends fall in this category. Not to suggest that they are useless, but that most of our really close friends serve no purpose as far as our careers and ambitions are concerned. The more driven individual might seek to turn these bums into czars or else eliminate contact with them altogether in the race to get ahead in life. I personally feel it's great to know a bunch of people with whom you have no hidden agenda.




Skunk-Czars: the scariest of the lot. Your boss might be a skunk czar, as might your rich relative. The problem is - how much czar is needed to outweigh the skunk? This is another key decision one makes in networking. True, if you need to meet someone you despise once a year and being nice to them makes life easier - maybe it's a good idea to suck it up. I've come across a few instances when a czar has been so much of a skunk that it stops being worth it anymore. It's a personal choice - but be sure you have assessed this category properly before rejecting any of its members.




Seal-Czars: friendly bosses and nice rich uncles; easy to get along with and influential. The more you can drag to this category, the more you stand to gain. The Seal Czar is a rare breed because many czars assume a skunk like form once they know you need their help. Still, there are some of them around if you look hard enough.




The diagram above has been drawn to depict each segment as being of equal size. However, a modern day misanthrope probably has lower level of tolerance when it comes with people. Hence his 'seals' space will be much smaller than his 'skunk' space. Furthermore, not everyone has the good fortune of having access to many czars. So a highly misanthropic individual with limited opportunities to meet czars would have this picture:






Obviously, this only further proves the truth in the statement of the water bison (he turned out to be a pretending bum, so I never bothered to find out his name). The misanthrope restricts his chances of success by limiting the seal-czars in his universe. An extrovert or 'people's person' in contrast, would create more seal-czars by virtue of the fact that he would view more people as seals than skunks.

Conclusion




It would be good to point out (in the hope of a wide audience) that in no way does this advocate anti-social behavior. The czars-bums-skunks-seals theory is merely a framework to allow people to better plan their networking. For the people's person such planning may be irrelevant since - and I really admire this trait - they tend to find something interesting in most other human beings and hence have very few skunks in their consideration set. For the modern day misanthrope - who really dislikes socializing except where really necessary - it serves as a useful tool.