Have you ever been embarrassed by a rather enthusiastic praise, for something that you felt was routine job? Perhaps, it was a case of sheer luck that you finished the job that brought you the laurels. Or, you were just the right man at the right place after multiple men had toiled hard solving the problem, ergo, leaving you uncomfortable for being glorified for something that happened by accident than design.
If you look around, this happens all too often. It happens at your workplace, in politics, in sports, in media or just about anywhere. Praise, these days, seems to come quite cheap. It especially shows up, like nowhere else, when honoring people on their departure from service, sports or life itself. The adjectives ‘great’, ‘awesome’, ‘excellent’, etc have to come to mean the same thing as the adjective ‘special’ would mean in ‘special chai’ sold on a train.
A recent such incident got me thinking on how to avoid or overcome the sense of embarrassment or awkwardness. Mr. Wolf from Pulp Fiction came to my rescue and provided me with a solution that promises instant rescue. So, if you ever find yourself at the receiving end of it, then just play the cool Mr. Wolf in your head. If you don’t know what am I referring, then read on..
Jules and Vincent are two gangsters who are out one morning doing their gangster stuff. After finishing the gangster stuff, on their way back, Vincent accidentally shoots a boy sitting in the backseat of their car, in the head! (Quite gory, I know, but don’t let it distract). To avoid getting caught on the highway they go to a friend(Jimmy)’s house. Jimmy freaks out since he can’t have his wife, who’s out working a night shift, walk in to their home to find a couple of gangsters in her kitchen, doing gangster $hit! So, Jules calls his Boss for help. The Boss promises to send the famous Mr. Wolf to manage the crisis and get Jules and Vincent out safely before the good wife comes home.
Sure enough, Mr. Wolf arrives on the scene, takes a quick look into the car splattered with blood and human brain pieces and like a true professional, gets to the job with clockwork precision. He instructs Jules & Vincent, what to do, when to do and how to do. At the end of it all the car is seen to be clean and with no trace of any gangster activity performed inside it. Jimmy, obviously impressed with the work and, perhaps, relieved that the missus won’t have to walk into a bunch of gangsters in her kitchen, praises Mr. Wolf and crew on the job well done. He says,
“I can’t believe this is the same car.”
Mr. Wolf, being the true professional he was, obviously doesn’t like being praised for having done a job that was but expected of him. So, he utters one of his two epic lines,
“Well, let’s not start sucking each other’s d**ks quite yet.”
There you have it, gentlemen. If you ever feel embarrassed for being praised for, what you may feel, a not so praiseworthy job, just play that scene and the line. In your head and not on an email, obviously!
PS — The other epic line by Mr. Wolf is,
“Just because you are a character doesn’t mean that you have character.”