The Substitute People

Wow, it felt good getting that twenty-dollar tip the other day. But equally if not more satisfying was the time I had waiting on the four people at that table. It's times like that when I feel, "I'm really doing a good job, I'm really making someone's day, and it's worth it just for this." I even got a very nice written commendation on the receipt that they turned into the cashier. Then there's part of me that wonders, that has wondered for my whole life, "How can anyone be that impressed with little old me??" I guess I've always had trouble accepting accolades. Low self esteem? Maybe a little of that...or more than a little. One thing I trace it to, though, is realizing how cheap the opinions of others are.

I learned in my Management course last semester about Jelly-Bean Motivation. Certain managers try to keep their employees motivated by handing out compliments left and right. My professor described a manager he once had that simply walked around saying, "Super!" "Super job!" "Super job there!" "Super!" "Suuuuuuper." "Super job!" These compliments are compared to jelly beans tossed rather frivolously to employees. They have no value because everyone gets them. They're not meritorious. So those who do a truly outstanding job will never know it because their lazy-butt co-horts get the same encouragement they do. Of course, being too negative and yelling at everybody all the time makes people think they can never do anything right, so that's not the solution, either. The point of jelly bean motivation is that compliments can be really cheap sometimes...and meaningless, because they're rooted in a person's feelings, not in the absolute value of how good something is that someone else did.

I know I'm at least a halfway decent person. I've been getting compliments all my life, as we all do about something people recognize in us individually as outstanding. For me it's always been intelligence and sincerity. I was always the "smart kid," the 4.0-Grade Point Average wonderkid with a perfect academic record. Everyone wanted my homework. I was the pride and joy of all my teachers. Consequently, everyone knew me, but no one really knew me. It's sometimes the same thing I feel with my sincerity and my "personable" nature. Yes, I handle people well because I sincerely love people and make people feel happy, including my guests at Cracker Barrel restaurant, but at times, I almost wished it weren't so. I'm the token Mr. Nice Guy. But who wants to be the token anything? The token smart kid, token people person, token rock star, token politician, token supermodel, token white man, etc. Who decides whether or not you're the token person, anyway? What are the criteria? Inevitably, someone will disagree that you deserve that "token" status.

The actress Kirsten Dunst does an excellent job explaining how people like us feel in Elizabethtown. We're the "substitute people," she says. Everyone knows us and we have a special place in society, but it seems like we can never come close to anyone because of our status. There is so much that comprises you, that comprises me, that no one could adequately figure us out in one or two sittings. Therefore, what right does another person have to size up who I am in one or two impersonal encounters? Oh, and then you have impersonal encounters that pose as personal ones. Enter the restaurant industry. Make your guests feel comfortable and welcome, treat them as if they're your mates, your jolly good friends. And yet as a waiter, I often could care less about their long-term welfare. I am ever-conscious of the tip I hope to make. Tell me, when I'm schmoozing people to make a living, should it be legal to say that I handled myself in a PERSONABLE manner?!?!

Kirsten Dunst made it sound like "substitute people" are a specific group. That is where I will venture off and say we all are "substitutes." We substitute in when a character role is needed. We're all just actors, really. We perform the roles that society ascribes to us. That's not good, but at the same time, society would fall apart if we didn't. Doesn't leave much room for hope, I guess. At least, not for a Romantic like myself. Selah.