Humane Society vs. Rape

So on Friday before I went to meet Mike for the opening show at the BNW, I stopped at Kowalski’s to buy us dinner. On my way out, I noted one of those “leave your receipt” things where you drop your receipt in one of the containers for the community service thing you support and a portion of what you paid for is donated or somewhat. Usually you see school music programs, local theatres, things like that. I was about to put mine into the Hennepin County Humane Societies box when I noticed one that said “Rape Victim and Crisis Counseling”. I actually had the following thoughts:

What kind of person would put their receipt into the rape counseling one instead of any other because they would have a guilty conscience if they didn’t? Like donating to your kids youth group was more important than funding escape kits for battered wives or something. I wanted to put mine in for the Humane Society, but then I was like, ‘well, saving animals is important… but so is counseling for rape victims…’… It was a serious question I was discussing in my head about which I should give my receipt to.

In the end I just walked away with my sushi and decided I’d just laugh about it later.

I don’t know. It just struck me as interesting.

I'm having a huge WTF moment...

Psychology of Internet Users

Since finding out that I was apparently somehow put on the front page as featured comment I have noticed three things:

One - After only getting a few comments here and there, it gives a certain rush to see 210 after returning home from vacation.

Two - People leave great comments. Really. Wow.

Three - Some people are just jerks. What I mean by that is, I had a handful of comments that were inappropriate, sexual, full of swears and all with no reason. Not even like "I disagree with you". Just "you expletive expletive expletive!!!111!!!!1! w00t!". What is with that? Why click on a link to a post and take the time to write out a comment that has nothing to do with anything and that's so negative and, well... stupid?

I think it may have something to do with this article I "stumbled upon" last week about false personas over the internet.

http://www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/disinhibit.html

This article is all about the psychology behind who we become on the internet. Everyone knows the feeling… The “they don’t know me, so what can it hurt” mentality. People get more aggressive online. They speak their mind more freely. They say crude things or even are more trusting online. The article says there are 6 psychological paths behind these actions:

You Don't Know Me (dissociative anonymity) (a false sense of security in that you are safe because they don’t know for sure who you are because of the internet)
You Can't See Me (invisibility) (You can’t see my face so I don’t have to look you in the eye)
See You Later (asynchronicity) (I don’t have to deal with it now)
It's All in My Head (solipsistic introjection) (The person on the other side of the screen is like story book characters that you assign attributes to – They aren’t real).
It's Just a Game (dissociative imagination) (It isn’t real life, what happens on the internet)
We're Equals (minimizing authority)) (You don’t have authority over me when we are online)

I’ll admit I fall victim to this sometimes, too. Especially when I was in high school. It was super easy to just pretend that I could say something to the girl I hated in class online and then when I saw her in class she would never know it was me. No harm no foul.

Or it was incredibly easy to spill my inner most thoughts to anyone willing to listen in my FOD (old school blogging). I let some pretty heavy stuff go online because I felt safe. No one here knew who I was. I was just words on a screen attached to a screen name.

It’s really interesting what the false world of the internet brings out of people. Some totally stable people are 100% different online. Someone you know and respect may stumble across some stupid comment you made on a website that was harsh or stupid, or not like anything you’d say in person to someone else and confront you about it. Then what do you do? Lie. Right? Say it was just a joke. That you didn’t mean it. That you were drinking, or that your friend was using your screen name…

It’s like night life. No one want’s to admit who they are online. No one want’s to admit where they were last night.

It’s just so… interesting.

Kat-isms from Carlton Cards

Job Title, Job Schmitle!

I’ve been thinking about writing about this for awhile now; since the sexual harassment training at work last month. Now I’ve finally gotten the chance.

Why is your job title so important? Why does not having a job make most people feel like failures at life, or like they are not worth anything? I would like to do a study on this some day; just a freelance survey or sorts.

When you first go to a party, what is almost always the first thing someone asks you after your name?

 “What do you do for a living?”

If you don’t have something impressive to say like “manager” or “doctor” or “specialist” then your job title makes you feel inferior to anyone else who uses those words to describe their job.

What baffles me is that a plain job title doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t in any way measure how great of a parent you are, or how good you are at guitar, or infer anything about the hours you spend volunteering on the weekends. It’s just a title – Along with anything else.

When I first got my job here at Omni-Tract, my family and friends would ask what my exact title was. I would respond with “administrative assistant” which almost always was followed with:

“Oh. Well… I guess that’s a good place to start fresh out of college. You’ll find a better job after you get established.”

Honestly, I stopped telling people I was the administrative assistant after a few rounds of that. It made me feel badly about a job I was really excited to start with great benefits and wonderful people. What I then did was add the words “To the CEO and President” to that “administrative assistant” phrase and suddenly people were like:

“Wow! To the CEO? AND the President? That’s really impressive. That’s a good place to start! You’ll do well!”

Why did mentioning that I will be working closely with those two men make any difference in the way my title is perceived? Why did people’s opinion of my title effect me to the point that I stopped wanting to tell people what I did?

I don’t have an answer. Other than it’s an American ideal to have a good title and a good outlook and a good job to tell people about how successful you are. Like your worth is measured by the title bestowed to you.

I can tell you that nothing other than my 8-5 shift is affected by my title. The fact that I am good at x y and z, that I desire to be a mother, that I love being with my cats… That my friends think I’m quite awesome (and usually I agree)… All the accomplishments and highlights of my life have nothing to do with my job title.

So why does it make or break ones self esteem? If you like your job, and you like your work, why does it matter what your title is?

I’m just interested in all of this now; the sociology behind it. If anyone has any answers, I’d love to hear them.