My employer recently saw fit to make me hire a marketer. This is approximately like making Prometheus adopt the eagle who pecked out his liver every day. Like making Bart Scott rub Hines Ward's feet. Or, if I'm trying to irritate Allie, like making Jesus hire Pontius Pilate.
I hate marketers. The feeling is mutual. My entire career is a tableau of me strangling talentless, sleazy marketers. Sometimes figuratively.
But I had my orders, so off I went to interview talentless sleazes who command $150-200 an hour to repeat back to you what you just told them, as though it were their own thought. I loathed them all. I eventually chose one in California, the thought being well, at least I won't have to meet her.
She has one particularly irritating trait. She's one of those people who block caller ID yet insist on calling you in response to your email. I say "those people" as if this were an established group of assholes.
Correction: it's just her.
Last week I was mooring my boat in a wicked cross-current. As soon as I killed the engines and raced outside, the boat flipped to face the current. I looked for my hook-pole. It was stolen. Helpless, I watched as my boat's engines ground into the neighboring boat. I grabbed the only tool available, a tiny oar, and paddled furiously. Sweating by the bucket, I slowly pivoted the boat. Stretching, I got a precious fingernail-hold on the slip. Bam. That's when the marketer called to tell me what I'd told her the previous day.
That's a gift.