People in London Are A Bit Up Themselves

[f4f3]

Or, to be more accurate, "the number of people I encounter in a work, as opposed to a social, environment in London and the South East who are well up themselves seems to be significantly higher than the number of people I encounter at work in Scotland who are well up themselves". Which is more accurate but lacks somewhat in pith.

By "up themselves" I mean someone who takes themselves, and the work they do, far too seriously. It's something like self importance, combined with a lack of humour or perspective. I tend to think it's the lack of humour that bothers me most - if you can't take the piss out of yourself, or have it taken out of you, then I'm going to have a real problem taking you seriously, or working with you for any length of time (to cast back to a long ago argument with someone (who I hope is still) on my FL, this isn't about humour used as a weapon to belittle someone else. It's about self deprecation, probably, and a degree of humility.

The amount of conversations I've had over the last month about golf, house prices, other people's jobs, and the fact that the person I'm talking to is vastly important, either by the nature of their job or by the people they know, or by their salary, or the value of their house, or by who they went to school or university (sorry, College) with, or by the car(s) they drive, or by the fact that their wives would never have a job, or by the amount of time they spend in the gym, or running marathons (never jogging, btw, always running) or their diet, is significantly larger than the amount I can stomach in a year.

I've been in Sheffield for the last couple of days, and I commented in a meeting how attractive the city centre is looking (I only saw the city centre) and that there was an interesting looking exhibition in one of the galleries I'd passed on the way up to the hotel (Ruskin and the Formation of Landscape, or similar). My Metropolitan colleague's reaction was "Oh, are you into that", in the same intonation as if I'd just mentioned a passing interest in coprophillia.

I'm aware that I'm verging on racism here, attributing a behaviour and *shudder* a type to a geographical region, but I honestly think that the gravitational pull of money and power to what they sweetly call The Metropolis (the definitive article is a clue, I think) also attracts arseholes. It's nothing to do with being born there, it's to do with why you live there.

Still, I'm back in Glasgow, the sun is shining and, as I reminded myself on Friday, I'm twenty minutes from Loch Lomond. Despit the danger of confirming the interest alluded to above, I'm moved to say - "Fuck this shit."

Comments

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

They love you too and often ask after your native Glasgow and all the vibrant culture that is occuring in your part of the United Kingdom.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I know you're joking, but the difference between the people I know socially and professionally down there is just unbelievable.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I believe you.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Well, it's nice to have someone who does...

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

*clapping*

I do, I do, I do believe in Michael.

(too much Peter Pan).

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Dial it back, dial it back...

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I shall send the Captain round to give you a Tinkerbell clap.

[andrewducker]

Yeah.

I have two sides of my family, and one of them is basically a North London banking/accounting clan. And I never, ever, talk to them, if I can possibly avoid it.

And I live 400 miles away from London on purpose.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I think that may be about the right distance. Though to be fair, there are many, many right thinking London folk, I just don't meet them through my work.

[ruric.livejournal.com]

You're just hanging around in the wrong type of office. *G*

We do have the odd marathon runner (for charity) and a bunch of us are trying to Biggest Loser each other into a healthier shape but the rest of the time we're either busy working or howling like hyenas!

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I am very much hanging out with the wrong people :)

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

At least they're probably scared of you.

I think it's a workplace thing, most of the Londoners I know are hippies.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

No matter how scared they are, they aren't scared enough. It's definitely a workplace thing, although working in Edinburgh for the same company on an account for a similarly sized bank, I didn't get a quarter of the bullshit. Possibly because no one would dare try to get away with it.

[meredyth-13.livejournal.com]

I've lived a number of largish cities, and my impression is there is a sizable segment of that social clique in all of them. It's just whether you end up exposed to them or not - and sadly it seems your work is, to put it kindly, exposing you to the 'wrong sort'.

As a group they also tend to scale up in size with the city - London, being a BIG city, has a good chunk of them. But at the same time, it also has big chunks of pretty much everything else. It's just a matter of knowing where to find the kindred spirits (or, failing that, enough of the good spirits to not care so much about the twats you're forced to spend time with).

*hugs*

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I live (from time to time) in the UK's second biggest city, and I don't get 20% of the shit. On the other hand, everyone I know in London socially is delightful, which might not be the case in Glasgow ;-)