Passive Aggressivity

I have decided that the general category of "passive aggressive people" is perhaps the most contemptible I can think of. One aspect in which Boston claims supreme victory over much of the world is the lack of passive aggressive people here. Much of "Minnesota nice" seems to be a front for cowardly action. I have the privilege of knowing a couple southerners, and they have told me of similar problems in the land of their youth. Apparently in the south, the common thing is the loathsome combination of flattery and gossip.

This is why gossip is so detestable: not only does it destroy when revealed, but it is so utterly cowardly, and inherently passive aggressive. If you have a problem, bring it up to the person it involves. This has the benefit of not only being commendable, but it has the potential to lead to resolution, which would remove the reason for contention in the first place. If the problem is such a tiny thing that it isn't worth bringing up with the person it involves, then perhaps you should take that as a sign that it isn't worth ridiculing him behind his back either (or even thinking about), realizing that the problem might actually lie with you. This isn't rocket science: it is basic human decency. Sorry... gossip deserves a post of its own at some point.

Anyway, the point of this post is to highlight two spectactular instances of passive aggressive behavior. The first exhibit was kindly made aware to me by my Aunt Melanie and Uncle Jack (thanks!). They gave me an article describing the extreme tactics people will employ to miss work without having to dialogue with their respective bosses:

If you don't like work but are scared of your boss, here's a service you may find useful: Call-in-sick.com. It allows you to record a message and have it sent to your employer's phone at your preferred time of day. Now you can get home at 2am from a night of partying, set up a "sick" recording, and go to bed knowing that a voicemail will be left on your boss's phone at 5am, long before he gets to work. This is aimed at preventing any need to deal with a curious boss's line of questioning (although I'm not sure what they advocate to prevent your boss from calling you when he gets your message--perhaps they intend to build robots to answer the phone for people who use this service). This doesn't really help me, because at MIT when you say, "I'm not feeling well" they say, "Ok, get well. Come back when you're better...." But maybe some of you will find it helpful.

The second exhibit is the utter epitomy of the detestable passive aggressive. A certain congressman called the police in order to try to get the congressman in an adjacent office to put out his cigar. Not only did this police-calling congressman not make any attempt to kindly ask the smoker to put away the cigar (and let's even ignore the fact that the smoking congressman has express permission to smoke these cigars in his office), but this pathetically passive aggressive complaining congressman had never bothered to meet the smoking congressman who worked next door. Who was this whining congresscritter? Keith Ellison, newly elected congressman from Minnesota, and the first Muslim in the U.S. congress. Between that one, Ventura, and Al Franken (who recently announced his candidacy for the 2008 MN senate race) we are quite the joke.