Dirty, Stinking, Filthy Hippie Solidarity

Now that February is upon us, WISPIRG is out recruiting. If you don’t know who they are, it’s the Wisconsin Public Interest…Retarded Goddamnedhippies or something. And I should know, considering I worked for them for one week (six entire days, count ‘em) before getting fired for not raising enough money to help the environment.

At this point you may have any number of valid questions running wild right now – for starters, “Why in the hell?” Okay, so it was mostly just because I got lazy in the application process for law firms for last summer. For some reason, I seem to take a personal affront to the entire idea of applying for a job, as though suddenly I’m required to valid my entire existence to these bastards for a job I don’t really want. I’ve kinda always had this streak in my life where the things I really want tend to work out come to me, and everything works out the way I want. So laziness was clearly a part of why I ended up with that job. But there was also a bit of “Let’s do something good for the earth and get paid” involved in the thought process. For someone whose always been political and intellectual (I swear), I’ve never really gotten involved in anything issue-wise before. It was always like I’ll do that when I get older, then I got older and I was still doing nothing. So it was a step for me.

Of course, with WISPIRG, they assume you care about the environment, in more than a vague “I’d prefer it if we didn’t kill all plants and animals” kind of way. And I was lacking in that area, but I assumed I could fake it. And I did, pretty well. The job required us to go door-to-door, giving people a little spiel about what we’re doing for the environment and why they should contribute money. I had down exactly what I was supposed to say, I said it clearly and persuasively, and I actually enjoyed getting out and talking to people. I didn’t care for the feeling that I was begging people for money, but I pushed that aside and did it anyway.

However, the problem was, I wasn’t a dirty, stinking, filthy hippie. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I could never be successful in that job because there’s a certain dirty, stinking, filthy hippie solidarity that just can’t be duplicated through feigned enthusiasm and polished delivery. Every time I approached a door, I got treated with kindness and respect, but they wouldn’t give me a dime. Even the ones that really cared about the environment. I looked around the office at all the other canvassers, and I noticed the only ones who were good at raising money were dirty, stinking, filthy hippies. The thing that killed me was, most of them were terrible at interpersonal communication – they spoke really quietly, mumbled unintelligibly, forgot their words, and never made eye contact, apparently allowing their overwhelming stench that comes from respecting mother nature too much to ever take a goddamned shower speak for them. Oh yes, these were the rainmakers.

Am I bitter? Eh. I didn’t like getting fired, or having to spend the next four weeks applying to every crappy job that was available, which was rather demoralizing. But then I found a passable job, and then a job at a law firm fell into my lap, and all was right with the world again.

The moral of the story? I fucking hate hippies.