Herpetology

My career has spanned 30 years now.  I've worked in many different offices.  I've seen so much in my time that déjà vu is a frequent experience.  I seem to be meeting the same people over and over again, though they have different names and look different.  There are far fewer types of person than there are people.  With so many examples of each type, life has trained my brain to quickly identify instances of these types.  The accuracy by which I can map new acquaintances to their proper type is uncanny.  I can see trouble coming from a mile away.

Not long ago, I correctly pegged a certain man as a lizard.  The way he dressed was certainly a clue, but such an identification takes much more than an assessment of his clothes and the way he wears them.  I can see that he spends a great deal of money on his hair.  His every word is loaded with disguised promises to fuck over everyone around him.  The hollowness of his suit proves that the suit makes the man.  He is the man the Kinks referred to as a “Dedicated Follower of Fashion.”  Confident in his sense of entitlement and authority, completely unfettered by the normal mammalian proclivity towards empathy, shallower than silver plating, and selected for his position by his closest friends, there was no doubt that this hollow man was out to kill, as psychopathic suits do kill.

Since making this identification, he has proved me spot on.  He is hated by those that actually produce and he is no more trusted than a famished snake.  His every word and email drips with his cold-blooded inability to understand those upon whom he feeds.  If he floats above, it is only because he is full of hot air.  Someday, his ego balloon will go down in flames.  Karma promises.