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Bait and Switch

I had an interesting bait and switch experience recently. It started when I was randomly asked if I may want something that sounded like it may have potential. The offer came from a person who I do not trust or respect. But to decline just on those grounds felt like an amateur move. Learning to survive in a snake-pit is a life skill a person my age should likely have. With those considerations in mind, I said Yes. My heart was definitely not in it and I don't have the world's best poker face. In subsequent days, I was asked a few more times if I was sure I wanted this thing. 

Each time, it took even more effort to work up the enthusiasm for this thing but I soldiered along. I hoped that I said all the right words, the right way the right time but clearly such was not the case. A few more days later, the person told me they had decided to put this thing on ice for the near-term. I met this news with a mixture of relief and disbelief. 

Relief because in my heart the answer was always "No" but I was doing my best to say "Yes" to prove I was brave in ways I feared I was not. Disbelief came from realizing my efforts at faking interest and enthusiasm had fallen completely flat. The person had seen right through me and almost effortlessly. It was humbling to realize how easy such things came to others and I was no where close to happy hour in a snake-pit forget about longer term survival.

The experience reminded me tangentially of the book Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich. This Guardian review summarizes the key take-away perfectly:

Throughout, she realises, she is encouraged to develop a personality of depersonalisation, to become unchallenging, unthreatening and able to turn any anger or rejection inwards when, inevitably, given the push. In a career lacking a particular professional skill, corporate workers are their own tools and blame themselves when unscrupulously consigned to economic wastage.

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