The Eternal Search For Greater Stupidity

A week after starting work, I told the new PA that she wouldn't be working here if I'd known that she were vegetarian. For the same reason I wouldn't knowingly hire a Bhuddist, a Labour Party supporter, or an ugly person, non meat-eaters are frankly beyond the pale.

I admit that I am a walking human rights commission complaint. Thankfully, while human rights legislation forbids discrimination on the basis of age, sex, sexual orientation, or religious belief, in this case, there is no specific regulatory impediment that says I cannot take dietary preference into account when deciding who should work for me.

Vegetarianism is a sign of major personality flaws. Specifically, if a person feels so strongly about animals that she thinks it a perfectly acceptable hobby to go out and feed stray cats, then that person is fucked in the head. "Don't you think you're better off poisoning the little fuckers so that they stop killing native birds?" I ask.

"No," she says. "Cats are so cute, and they have a right to life."

"It's that kind of comment that will compel you to live all your life on this earth in mediocrity," I answer.

I put up with her mindless crap day in and day out. She has a screensaver of three kittens standing next to each other, all looking up at something. The other day I told her that if I were taking that photo, I would have snapped away, and then taken a scythe and killed three cats with one blade.

Far be it for me to sound controversial, but I just do not get people who form relationships with pets simply because they are incapable of relating to ordinary people. It's sick, and for far too long these people have been tolerated and protected by society.

Having a pet is not normal. It is unnatural to have a dog as your best friend. A cat is even less useful. Unless you have a dog to bite burglars, or a cat to eat mice, then you are seriously demented. Or, you need to seriously get some real friends. If you have so little control over your life that you need to compensate by having a pet that you can tell what to do, then you are afflicted with serious mental problems.

Incidentally, I was having an argument with another colleague--another vegetarian, who was upset because one of her cats died at the age of seventeen. I told her that I was disgusted that she put so much affection into a non-human. Then she ranted back that she finds animals much better than people, and that she'd choose a cat over a human child any day. "Good thing your parents didn't think the same way," I mused, and then proceeded to plan the rest of my week in such a way as to be eating a different variety of meat at lunchtime every day. One of the advantages of working among a bevvy of Chinese food establishments. The high point of that week was when she asked me what the smell from my lunch-box was. As I stuffed a bit in my mouth, I reported: "The guy who sold it to me called it 'Suckling Pig', but I suspect it barked before it was beheaded."

Vegetarians and animal rights activists are typically socialist, and green-party supporting. In both respects, they have no concept of the real world. They will quite happily support obscure, quite futile, and anti-human causes, and then complain that we're not doing enough to support starving people. "Send them a can of corned beef," I typically answer. And THEN they have the gall to complain that their performance-related work incentive hasn't been properly authorised by their union representative.

Worst of all, as a group, vegetarians cannot deal with stressful situations. This is a crucial flaw in any business context. When a client wants something right NOW, they don't care whether or not the budgie is looking peakish. Because vegetarians have not had to deal with the real-world pressures of life, and assume that the world owes them a GE-free lifestyle, they have no right to claim to be treated as ordinary human beings. Because they're not. And it's time we stopped pandering to them.

On Tuesday, my vegetarian junior colleague reported that she was late to the office that day because she had to drop her partner off to work first. "Don't really care why you're late," I say, "but I suppose you're going to tell my why anyway, huh?"

And then she proceeded to tell me. The story goes like this. About six weeks ago, her boyfriend bought a car from auction. He didn't have the cash to pay in cash, since living his left-wing lifestyle, he doesn't have enough ambition in life to have a job that affords such privileges. So instead, he turned to a credit card, which had just arrived on his door-step with a six thousand dollar credit limit.

Now, a responsible person who earns forty grand a year might ask themselves how they are going to repay six grand at twenty-two percent interest if they max out their card immediately. But not this chap. Armed with his new Visa, he buys himself a Subaru Legacy. It's a great deal at auction. It's so cheap, because he bought it wholesale. That's what he tells himself. Oh, and he's such a good negotiator.

A week after buying the car, without either an AA check or a mechanical break-down warranty, because he's so good at spotting a great deal, the car starts making noises. Yes. With forty-one thousand kilometres, the mystery fault is two CV joints. CV joints are directly related to the wear and tear on a vehicle: they typically go at around a hundred and twenty thousand kilometres. Eight hundred dollars later, and the vegetarian's boyfriend hasn't learned any lessons in this car-owning endeavour yet.

But that is just a prelude to the boy's stupidity. On Tuesday, the PA says that the reason she was late was the car got stolen that night.

"Oh, that will be a relief for you both," I say. "The odometer was fraudulently wound back, and you couldn't have sued Turners for it, but at least you can get back what you paid for it on insurance, and do a mechanical check with your new car. Well done. Good news at last."

But no. "Actually, my boyfriend didn't insure the car."

I laughed out loud. I laughed so hard I almost sneezed. As I gathered myself after a good half hour, I asked her where it was when it was stolen. She then reported that it had been sitting on the street, because it was her turn that night to park her (insured) vehicle in the car-port. "Nice that you treat such things democratically," I say. "Have you dumped him for being so stupid?"

No. He's too lovely, apparently. Despite the fact that he bought a car he couldn't afford, on his credit card, didn't do a mechanical check on it, didn't insure it, and then left it outside in the street, even though Subaru Legacies are the most frequent target for car thieves.

And while I understand the hazard of generalising people, my experience of vegetarians is that they are all like that. They are simply incapable of making real-world decisions. Sure, they provide amusement in your work-place. But they should not ever be trusted with any decision-making authority.