Societal Cross-Sections

A story about stereotypes

For the past eight years I’ve been making a living as a custom homebuilder. Having worked in a cubicle before that, the joys of using my hands and being outside are high on the list, but my favorite part of the job has to do with the people I see every day. As a project manager, the gig cuts a cross-section through society—meaning I talk to everyone from ditch diggers to millionaire financiers, architects graduated from Harvard and tradesmen emigrated from Mexico / Russia / Ukraine / Honduras. There’s no telling who might show up on a given day. The only thing certain is that none of these conversations sound anything alike.

It’s “fucking this” and “fucking that” with the electrician; “the more cost-effective approach here would be . . .” with the homeowner; geeking out on tile patterns with the interior designers; and swapping dirty euphemisms across the language barrier with the guys.

Some might say it’s disingenuous to shift your words around in this way, but I think it’s like changing shoes. You don’t wear hiking boots to a nice dinner; you don’t wear tassel loafers on the trail. Because you’ve got to fit within the scene around you—at least that’s the goal. (Enter the proverbial loud American ordering grand expressos in some European café, gaining stares from just about everyone . . . read the room, man.)

On a daily basis, though, diversity can be hard to come by. As opposed to, say, custom jewelers or loan sharks, few vocations see a wide swath of society. Some exceptions: gas station attendants, stadium ticket takers, pharmacists. Because, for the most part, it seems we find our people and get comfortable.

When it comes to the unfamiliar, we’ve pretty much only have the blunt tool of stereotype to work with. I guess that’s human nature. However, it would be a mistake to pigeon-hole any portion of society, let alone an individual, upon such corrupted ideas wholesale. We all know the “exceptions” who “aren’t like that”—you know, friends who don’t fit the given stereotype—even though most people qualify when you actually talk to them.

And this is when it gets interesting, because people breaking free of stereotypes is the greatest act of cultural subversion one could make. As Charles Bukowski, the scum-dredging / beauty-divining poet of Los Angeles, wrote:

            the world is full of shipping clerks
            who have read
            the Harvard Classics

I’ll personally attest to that. Take this one crusty old plumber I know who loves opera, holding a regular musik nacht where a group of toilet sales reps and pipe runners get together to discuss Wagner and Verdi and Puccini like they’re buddies.

(By the way, if you never thought you could like opera, these three minutes of Pavarotti will change your mind.)

Or take the carpenters who listen to Alan Watts’ lectures while ripping down plywood, subsequently discussing their weekend Harley rides through the lens of eastern philosophy—it’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in the flesh.

When you see guys like this rolling around town in their pickup trucks, who would guess? Yet the more I see it happen, the more I think this truth stays secret because it’s fun to know the truth when others don’t, fun to make connections where others won’t.

However, in the end, the only stereotypes you can really break are those that apply to you. So I’ll wrap this one up with a story of my own:

It was my toddler’s last music class and I’d yet to see what this was all about. So after laying out the framers on a stud wall, I drove to the music studio, untied my work boots, and placed them next to the row of tiny shoes. I sat down beside my wife and child, crossed my legs and started clapping along to the teacher’s jangling guitar. And then we sang, “hello everybody, we’re so glad to see you.”

Indeed.

Martin

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