The Nowhere Man
I've been watching a lot of Pokémon lately. Well, I've been watching a lot for the past
two years, now. One character that always astounds me is Gary. Gary is also from Pallet Town,
and is Ash's greatest rival. At the end of the first storyline, Gary had 10 gym badges, and Ash
only had the requisite eight. Ash placed in the top 16 at the Pokémon league championships at
the Indigo Flats, while Gary washed out. In the Orange Islands storyline, it didn't matter that
Ash returned home the Orange League champion. That honor was belittled by Gary. Ash
challenged Gary to a one-on-one match, and Ash lost. Gary has yet to make an appearance in the
Johto League storyline, but Ash did start his pokémon journey in the Johto league if only to beat
Gary at the championship. Why does Gary both Ash so much? I mean, Ash has accomplished
quite a bit in his pokémon journeys, but it means nothing as soon as Gary shows up and makes a
few nitpicky comments about Ash's style. Ash then loses to Gary, Gary gloats over his win, and
then vanishes. Why does this bother Ash so much, when Ash is clearly the better trainer? Why
do these occasional losses to a hometown rival bug him so much? The thing is, I think I'm
figuring it out.
In my work with the Liberal association, I've worked with this guy named Harold
Knopke. He's in his 50s, a former teacher, and currently has his own little computer company.
Do you watch The Lone Gunmen, or at least familiar with them from their appearances on The
X-Files? He looks like Frohike with a bad comb-over and a goatee. He does very little for the
Liberals. He shows up to the meetings. He pays his $10 membership every year. He
occasionally attends the fund-raisers, and that's the extent of his involvement. But why does he
annoy me so? Because he's a nitpicker. He always obsess over the little, inconsequential
details. Here's a sampling:
- At my first meeting as treasurer, I made a math error and was out by $0.30. I corrected my error, made my apologies to the group, and tried to move on, but he still wanted a complete report on it for the next meeting, in case I tried to embezzle $0.30. - When we were planning our first fund-raiser, we were going to sell wine by the glass and by the bottle. We threw out some suggestions for a by-the-glass price and a price for the bottles. This didn't sit to well with Harold and a cohort of his, Doug Hall. According to them, we should be setting these prices properly, not just making up numbers, and to do it properly, we needed to know how many glasses were in a bottle. So, the meeting ground to a halt as they forced us to debate how many glasses are in a bottle. Fortunately, we were having our meeting in a winery. To get them to finally shut up, we went and grabbed a bottle and a few empty glasses and determined it. It's 8, in case you're curious. - One time I forgot to put the date on my financial report. He was sure to point this out. - Once he started making a big deal about wanting to get a copy of the electors list for himself. This is a list of all the registered voters in our riding. When we got it from the Liberal head office, we presented it to him. This being the dawn of the 21st Century, it was on CD-ROM. This didn't sit well with him. "Why did they put it on a CD?" he whined. In the Liberals' defense, I said, "Well, it's a huge file. It's about 10 M." That still didn't sit well with him. "They could've put it on a floppy if they compressed it," he grumbled. - As the election drew near, the URL of the Liberal's website was announced: albertaliberal.com.
He hated this. He felt it was a huge breach of Internet protocols. If anyone's curious, he's
currently cybersquatting on the "proper" URL: albertaliberal.ab.ca.
I remember when our president got tired of his whining. During the election, he was
going to loan us some computers for our office. Halfway through the election, he finally calls us
up, wanting to come to our office and install them. Our campaign manager lost it on him, and
told him where to shove his computers. Since I'm the only other one there who knows a little
something about computers, he sent me a whiney e-mail talking about all the time he invested in
this, and that maybe another Liberal candidate could use them. I don't think any other Liberal
candidate used them because, like we wanted him to do, most other Liberal candidates had their
computers installed 2 weeks before the writ was dropped, so the system would be bug-free and
their staff trained on them by the election. And besides, we soon learned that during the last
campaign, he set up his little network halfway through the election, and then it was down half
the time as he worked out the bugs. We didn't need a whole computer network for the last week
of the campaign.
But for some reason, his nitpicks are always targeted at my financial reports. I am
honestly awaiting the day when he gets up there at a meeting and says, "I really disagree with
your choice of font, Mark." True, he does occasionally come up with a legitimate question, but
95% of the time it's whiney, nitpicky, nonsense. The last straw came at our annual general
meeting.
For the AGM, a financial report has to be more detailed. I also need to present an
inventory of our assets and their value on the marketplace, so a complete financial picture can be
painted. When had our office up and running, we were selling various kinds of Liberal
merchandise. I knew I had to present an inventory of what we had and what it was worth. I got
the inventory from our president, and for the worth, I was just going to use the price list we used
in our office. Sadly, through, as much as I looked through my records, I couldn't find a copy of
the price list. So, I estimated, based on my own fuzzy memories. Most of my estimates sounded
reasonable enough; $5.00 for a coffee mug, $2.00 for a pin, stuff like that. But then I came to
the book Shredding The Public Interest by Kevin Taft. I thought I had a sure-fire way to
estimate it's worth. I grabbed my own copy, flipped to the back cover, and read off "Suggested
Retail Price $8.95." That sounded good enough to me, and I used that number for my estimate.
At the meeting, representatives of the Alberta Liberal party were there to oversee things.
Of course, they were selling Liberal merchandise, and I saw their price for Shredding The Public
Interest: $0.50. My heart sank at how I overestimated, but I figured that I'd be OK if I just told
the truth when I presented my report. I didn't have the price list, so I used the suggested retail
price as my guide. When I presented my report, I mentioned how I didn't have the price list, so I
estimated the values. The floor was then opened to questions. Harold Knopke had two
questions. The first one was legitimate. He wanted to know what kind of impact the election
would have on us. The President fielded that question, and said that while the campaign
treasurer is still finalizing her books, we are assured that we will not be in debt. That satisfied
him, and then he had one more question:
Knopke>> How did you arrive at the value of $8.95 for the books?
Me>> Well, I didn't have the price list we used in our office, so I used the suggested retail price
of $8.95.
Knopke>> How did you know that's the suggested retail price?
Me>> It's printed right on the back of the book.
Knopke>> Don't you think that there's something odd with that number? I mean, the Liberals
are here selling it for $0.50! I'm pretty sure that's not the price we were using in our office.
Me>> I didn't have the price we were using in our office, so I made an estimate, using the
suggested retail price as my guide.
Knopke>> Well, it's all fine and dandy that that's what some publisher thinks it's worth, but it
can't be what it's really worth if it's being sold for $0.50. Did we even pay $8.95 for it when we
bought it to sell?
Me>> I don't recall if that is what we paid for it. If I dig through my files, I could probably find
the itemized receipt for you at our next meeting.
At this point our candidate stepped in. She pointed out that it was her who bought the
merchandise and that she neglected to get an itemized receipt. Harold then grumbled something
about guessing he got his answer, but still wanting to know the truth. I was visibly upset,
though, for the rest of the meeting. I don't respond well to being grilled on the stand. When I
got home that night, I had had enough, so I sent this e-mail to Harold:
Hey Harold!
You left the meeting in such a hurry I didn't have time to say this to you.
I am sick and tired of your bullshit.
In high school, I had honours in mathematics. At university, I earned my degrees in physics and
math. I could -- and still can -- do three-dimensional integral equations with skill equal to my
professors. At work, I was just promoted to an assitant manager position, where one of my
duties is doing the day-end bookkeeping for (on average) $20,000 in receipts. And throughout
my young life, you are the only one who doesn't trust my numbers.
Someone once said that you can do one of three things in life: lead, follow, or get out of the
way. Since you did not stand for nomination in any of the executive positions, that clearly
shows that you do not want to lead. Since you showed minimal support for our candidate during
the election, that clearly shows that you do not want to follow. Since you consistantly whine
about every decision at the monthly meetings, that clearly shows that you do not want to get out
of the way.
I sincerely hope that by the next regular meeting you've decided what you want to do.
Mark Cappis
I got this response: Mark, my, my, such vitriol.
Did you by any chance ever take a logic course? Do you see nothing odd with showing books
valued at $8.95 while they are being sold for 50 cents on a table right in front of you? I don't
even remember seeing them listed at $8.95 when they were on the table in the campaign office
during the election. And you call one question about this "bullshit"?
By the way, thank you very much for your insightful answer at the meeting. It is the first time ever that I have heard a financial officer say at an AGM that since he didn't have the receipts he "estimated" the numbers. On your $20,000-a-day job do you estimate those receipts also? I deal almost daily with senior financial officers of some relatively large corporations and a lot
of them are going to get a chuckle out of that one. Don't worry, I won't mention your name.
Lastly, I suggest that you really should learn how to use a spelling checker. Whatever in the
world is an "assitant manager position"? And I don't do anything "consistantly". If anything, I
do it consistently. But then, I suppose, accuracy in spelling, like accuracy in numbers is
just more "bullshit".
Thanks for making my day. Please keep the drivel coming.
When you get an e-mail like this at 8 in the morning, it tends to make your whole day
kind of crappy. And I began thinking about a response to this.
Firstly, he's got a real short memory if he thinks that his one question was the only
bullshit I was referring to. Secondly, if he was actually listening to the answer I gave, he would
have heard that I made estimates because I didn't have the PRICE LIST in front of me, not the
receipt. The receipt only came into play when I was trying to find some answer to appease him.
If I had the price list in front of me like he did, that's the number I would have used. I'm sure
that how well I did in logic pales in comparison to his hearing problems. Thirdly, I find no
problem in using the suggested retail price as an estimate. If he were to walk into a bookstore,
that's what they'd tell him it's worth. I would love for him to walk into a Chapters and argue
with the manager that they shouldn't be using that price because someone else sells it for less
than half of that. And finally, he takes the time out to criticize my SPELLING? I was going to
use that to question his knowledge about computers, but then my good friend Darmok reminded
me that Microsoft e-mail clients do have spell-check, and that 60% of the world uses Microsoft.
I use Eudora, and it doesn't have spell-check. But I still question his knowledge about computers if he uses nothing but Microsoft. Plus, how
anal retentive do you have to be to spell check your e-mail? Is he really afraid that he'll lose
friends because of a few typos? But then, if he's going to hide behind words like "vitriol," I
guess he'd better know how to spell them.
I was going to throw all that into a response and fire it back at him, but then I started
thinking, "What's the point?" He'll just twist my words again, nitpick my spelling again, rely on
his selectively-heard facts and throw it back at me. But, it was still gnawing at me. I wanted the
last word. I sought advice from my mother, the seasoned politician that she is. She said that
when it comes to people like this, you've got to keep your answers short and to the point, so they
have no more ammunition for their twisting. So this was the response he got:
Harold,
I'm amazed at how completely you missed the point.
Mark Cappis
And that's the one thing I can't do: lose sight of the point. We are the Liberal
association. Our job is create a viable candidate and win the next election. We're not going to
do that by figuring out how many glasses are in a bottle, or complaining about high estimates, or
analyzing spelling on reports that will be filed and forgotten. We're going to do it by getting out
into the community and putting on our friendliest faces. We're going to do it by getting the
literature out there, and being the voice of the opposition, not by being a bunch of embittered
salesmen grumbling about spelling. I forget who said it, but we have to let that which does not
matter not matter. Harold Knopke seems to have forgotten that, and I have to learn how to do it.
Harold Knopke is one which truly does not matter.
But it's hard. People like this get under your skin and fester, like a splinter. Most days,
it seems like they only exist to point out your faults. And I'm sure I shouldn't talk. As I write
this, I can't help but wonder if people I know feel this way about me. That's what we all have to
do, let go. I have to let go of Harold Knopke and focus on the big picture. That's the only way
we're going to win the next election. Ash has to let go of Gary. That's the only way he's going
to go on to become a true pokémon master. Rivalries do not matter. Nitpickers do not matter.
We have to let go. People like Ash and myself, we still have long ways to go on our journeys.
But we are going to get there. Until then, we just have to remember what doesn't matter.
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