Crony, toady, pogy, lickspittle.
Apple-polisher, follower, hanger-on, backslapper, well-wisher.
Empty suit, coat holder, guy-we-kept-around-to-empty-the-ashtrays, "associate", errand boy.
These are just some of the ways we will remember Peter Aaronson.
With his omnipresent, ingratiating smile and looking around nervously to see how everyone else was reacting, he spent many undistinguished years doing whatever the hell it was he did for a living.
Raised in some podunk jerkwater somewhere out in the toolies, he got out of there the minute he finished high school, and then spent the rest of his life talking about how lucky he was to be born and raised in such a fine setting. What a strong moral grounding it gave him. Then he spent the rest of his life with his tongue up some mid-level supervisor's ass.
For the record, all the more specific he ever got about it was, "I'm employed by a private fiduciary concern." Jesus. Look, if you can't describe what it actually is, it's illegal. Or at very least, you don't talk that way about things that you're proud of.
He went to college in some bucolic, stagnant backwater and got a degree in 'Business'. Oh, bravo. Now here's a guy with some fresh ideas! Hey guys; here's this other guy who wants to do things for money! You think we oughta hire him? I mean, he doesn't actually do anything, and says he wants to come in here and sit at a desk, make money off of actual work being done by lesser-paid Others Elsewhere! I like the cut of his jib!
Making himself essential to the mysterious workings of the Managerial Class, this nonetheless introduced him to pretty much nobody interesting at all. He met other men and women just like him in his travels, which were, paradoxically, constant. There wasn't a Residence Inn (tm) that didn't see ol' Pete at one time or another!
When he was called upon for his ideas, there would be that reliable nervous chuckling he constantly emitted. Because he had none. This would be the case with everybody else up there in the Brain Trust; they had been talking to and surrounded only by other people just like them for too long. No amount of corporate seminars regarding 'thinking outside the box' were ever going to change that.
He married a woman that worked for the same company. She worked in another state though, because this company, despite having no noticeable reason to be, had offices in every state in the continental U.S., and in five countries overseas. Their union was noted with approval by the company, who then pooled their modest 401 Ks and health benefits.
They lived in a neighborhood that...Oh god, I can't do it. It's just too goddamn depressing.
He never met a stranger. By that I don't mean "...just a friend he hadn't made yet." I mean "he was terrified of people he didn't already know." Kinda hated 'em, actually.
Y'ever meet a guy like this (and of course you have; they're everywhere) and think, "Now there's someone who's going to climb up in a clock tower one of these days with a high powered rifle and start taking people out"? Well, you wouldn't be too far off the mark with Peter, except substitute 'congestive heart failure', and you'd be there.
Remembrances to...Whatever. Leave me alone.
-His Wife, employee # 48682976
No comments:
Post a Comment