The Asshole Litmus Test
Tips for checking someone’s Assholidity
Have you ever met someone that is just an all around miserable mother fucker? I already know the answer is yes. I would even go so far as to say you’ve probably met several. Someone who is rude for no reason, complains because it fans their rage, puts others down because it feeds their insecure ego. The “Karen” at Denny’s screaming because her eggs were medium when she asked for basted. The “Chad” who stills wears energy drink trucker caps and calls every woman babe. I witnessed two old guys at the hospital the other day, talking shit about the incompetent staff and expressing their views on masks, Biden and the general decline of society, as if the underpaid and overworked intakers at the front desk were personally responsible. These are specifically the kind of people I mean. Miserable. Mother. Fuckers.
Everywhere I go I meet some prick who thinks he has to treat people like fucking garbage to validate himself, and since I’ve returned to bartending, its become even clearer to me how many people, who literally do not matter to anyone, take their meager, modicum amount of inflated importance and use it to belittle, intimidate, and terrorize those around them they deem even less important than themselves. I’ve seen a lot of things in the span of 16 years. I’ve seen bartenders throw a bottle across the room. I’ve seen them throw up on the bar. I’ve seen them fuck customers in the parking lot, sometimes for money, other times just because. I’ve seen one blow his entire wedding fund in an hour on blackjack. I see bartenders treat each other like shit all the time, although you might assume we share a common decency not to behave that way. Much like the rest of the common world, there is no code. No empathy for another hard working person going through similar things. No mutual respect that dictates one would be at least civil to the other. And so one night at work another bartender went well out of his way to fuck with me. He was rude, disrespectful, and intentionally intimidating, pushing me around with his little bird chest. Questioning me on every single detail, rolling his eyes at my incompetence, slamming shit around as if I’d rearranged the entire fucking set up. And instead of focusing on everything that made him a miserable sack of shit, I let it get to me. I went home feeling terrible after a night or working myself stupid. I woke up the next morning feeling even worse. I cried real fucking tears when he ran his mouth like the baby back bitch I suspected he was, instead of speaking to me clearly and directly when I was standing right in front of him. I was so disgusted by this employee’s treatment of me that I removed myself from working there ever again. To my own detriment. You could say I cut off my nose to spite my face. I let some washed up 60 year old lifetime fuckup literally take money out of my family’s pocket just because he made working there so unbearable. But sometimes the lesson isn’t in what someone says about you: the lesson is in who the fuck is saying it.
…people take their meager, modicum amount of inflated importance and use it to belittle, intimidate, and terrorize…
And then I met a girl. We’ll call her Katie. Although cold and generally unfriendly, I was forced to make a new work ally. And so I found a vibrant, bubbly bartender who is friendly, willing to help when she can, and has a much more noticeably upbeat personality than I do. After a long day of working along side each other in a totally new environment, we quickly made friends over a pile of unrolled silverware. We got to chatting and I mentioned that I saw she was working at XYZ place a lot. Without having alluded to any of my underlying rage regarding the subject, she looked at me sharply and said “No”. Mmmmk. Katie proceeds to tell me why she’ll never work there again, most importantly about the unchecked asshole relieving that very shift. Hmm, you don’t say. She unloaded on me about how she hadn’t been back in weeks and how verbally abusive he’d been to her. He treated her stupid and called her names. Talked shit about her to the management, which is always surprisingly absent. I’m listening. And then she says, her last time working in this complete dump, all alone again for the Nteenth time, the growing ball of disdain and resentment finally exploded. They got into a fight. Not a physical one of course, but a Cops-style screaming match you usually only see on Channel 5 in the middle of the night. This small framed, sweet faced, friendly, accommodating girl got into a verbal altercation with our resident senior citizen has-been never-was overnight asshole. And I laughed. I laughed so fucking hard Sprite blew out of my nose.
I laughed because it’s always me. I’m difficult to work with. I’m unfriendly. I’m aggressive. I’m opinionated. I know everything. I am the constant problem in an otherwise perfect system. Or so I’m made to feel. But here sat my polar opposite in every way, detailing to me how she was berated and terrorized by the same sack of shit. And so, the Asshole Litmus Test was born. And it goes a little something like this: The next time someone fucks with you, assess this person’s level of Assholidity. Does this person look like they take care of themselves or have just conceded to being a dirty, sloppy pig? Does this person have a job where they are well liked and respected or are they working in a trash environment they will likely never break out of? Did this person make any attempt, if applicable, to be helpful and accommodating or did they intentionally and willfully try to ensure your demise by withholding assistance? Because 9/10 times, a filthy, illiterate, barely employable, womanizing, drunk, gamblaholic is going to be easy to spot, like our friend the grave guy. Other times, though, it’s much harder to pinpoint someone’s level of Assholidity. Maybe they have a great job and a seemingly perfect life but they secretly hate women because they have a micro penis. You just never know.
9/10 times, a filthy, illiterate, barely employable, womanizing, drunk, gamblaholic is going to be easy to spot.
I’m saying do not immediately accept the fault. Don’t immediately question yourself. Don’t overanalyze what you did, what you said, or how you handled it. Maybe later, in the comfort of your home or the jail cell you’re sleeping in after you cut that mother fucker down, that is the time for self reflection. But initially I suggest you flip the script, not only for your own safety but for your own piece of mind. Do not let someone push you around, intimidate you, belittle you to the point that you feel you can never return somewhere. Instead, stand your ground and let that dickless piece of shit know who they’re talking to. Especially as women, we’re ingrained to step down, step back, not make a fuss. We let altercations boil past an acceptable level because we’re natural soothsayers. We don’t want to draw attention or make people feel uncomfortable. Fuck that. You make people feel the exact same way they make you feel. Tit for tat. I live and die by the theory that I’ll match your energy, no matter what it is. If you want to be friendly, we can be friendly. Snide for snide. Cunt for cunt. I don’t plan to shut the fuck up. I don’t plan to be less aggressive. I don’t want anyone to feel comfortable enough around me to think they can say whatever the fuck they want and there won’t be recourse. We may live in a world where shutting the fuck up is the standard, but I will continue to wave my Fuck That flag, and I encourage all of you to do the same.