Hide your wives and girlfriends.
And daughters.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
So, this dude you know is a typeface snob. Now what?
So, CBS just bought and/or renamed College Sports TV and has rechristened it CBS College Sports. In doing so, they’ve moved it from one of the premium tiers on my satellite dish to one of the lower tiers, and I’m able to watch it for that extra bit of March Madness information and analysis that I haven’t been bombarded with in the other 78 places that I get my info. And thank God for that, because … oh, nevermind.
Right now, however, they are showing the NAIA Fab Four (because I don’t guess the NAIA can use “Final Four” to denote the last four teams in a tournament - I don't know, which would you rather have your event confused with? The most popular basketball tournament in the world or the most popular music group that ever put pick to guitar?).
Sometime just after World War II, the NAIA was a much more relevant competitor to the NCAA, but now plays its basketball championship games in places like Kansas City’s Municipal Arena, which was once a major player in the NCAA tournament, hosting championships in the 1940s.
What kind of a place is Municipal Arena? I've never been. But look no further than the egregious misuse of the worst typeface in the world, Comic Sans MS, on the end lines and along the sidelines. There have been a lot of inappropriate uses of Comic Sans MS since it came to prominence – from billboards for law firms and restaurant menus to business e-mail and business cards.
(Oh, come on. You know Comic Sans MS. It looks like this.)
And, what’s the only way to make the usage of Comic Sans MS even more inappropriate and egregious? That’s right – MAKE IT ALL CAPS.
(And, of course, I can find zero pictures of the basketball floor anywhere on the internets. You'll just have to trust me when I tell you that, on the ends of the court, it reads KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, and on the sidelines, it reads MUNICIPAL ARENA, and imagine how foolish that font looks on a basketball court.)
My guess: The people who the city of Kansas City commissioned to design the floor of Municipal Arena are a couple of middle-aged housewives who have an Angelfire page with all of the angels and dancing babies and kittens on it. Remember to dance like nobody’s watching and love like you’ve never been hurt and forward this on to six of your friends or else you don’t love Jesus. And all that other FWD: FWD: FWD: shit.
(For more information on the sheer idiocy of bad Comic Sans MS usage, click here. For more information on stupid forwarded shit, click here. For a picture of Heather Mills-McCartney when she had two legs, click here.)
Right now, however, they are showing the NAIA Fab Four (because I don’t guess the NAIA can use “Final Four” to denote the last four teams in a tournament - I don't know, which would you rather have your event confused with? The most popular basketball tournament in the world or the most popular music group that ever put pick to guitar?).
Sometime just after World War II, the NAIA was a much more relevant competitor to the NCAA, but now plays its basketball championship games in places like Kansas City’s Municipal Arena, which was once a major player in the NCAA tournament, hosting championships in the 1940s.
What kind of a place is Municipal Arena? I've never been. But look no further than the egregious misuse of the worst typeface in the world, Comic Sans MS, on the end lines and along the sidelines. There have been a lot of inappropriate uses of Comic Sans MS since it came to prominence – from billboards for law firms and restaurant menus to business e-mail and business cards.
(Oh, come on. You know Comic Sans MS. It looks like this.)
And, what’s the only way to make the usage of Comic Sans MS even more inappropriate and egregious? That’s right – MAKE IT ALL CAPS.
(And, of course, I can find zero pictures of the basketball floor anywhere on the internets. You'll just have to trust me when I tell you that, on the ends of the court, it reads KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, and on the sidelines, it reads MUNICIPAL ARENA, and imagine how foolish that font looks on a basketball court.)
My guess: The people who the city of Kansas City commissioned to design the floor of Municipal Arena are a couple of middle-aged housewives who have an Angelfire page with all of the angels and dancing babies and kittens on it. Remember to dance like nobody’s watching and love like you’ve never been hurt and forward this on to six of your friends or else you don’t love Jesus. And all that other FWD: FWD: FWD: shit.
(For more information on the sheer idiocy of bad Comic Sans MS usage, click here. For more information on stupid forwarded shit, click here. For a picture of Heather Mills-McCartney when she had two legs, click here.)
I don't know much about the mortgage crisis, but I do know this:
I’m not making excuses for people who have gotten themselves screwed on the subprime or adjustable rate mortgages - pay your bills, dammit - but I do have a bit of sympathy for those who have seen their monthly payments balloon to 50 or 100 percent more than what they formerly paid. Only a bit, though, because it's nothing but hubris if you thought the good times and good interest rates were going to last forever, and you really do need to read the fine print when buying a carton of eggs or a $200,000 house.
But it seems to me that the crisis, in a nutshell, can be traced to the fact that if you’re paying $100 a week to put gas in your car (or more), whereas previously, you were paying only $30 or $40, then that sure as hell is going to eat into your house payment.
I'm just saying.
Maybe it’s a bit too simplistic, because overreliance on easy credit is surely a culprit, but I think that there’s way too much brainpower being devoted to overanalysis of the situation when the answer is right there.
Bring down fuel prices – open up more drilling in the West or down in the Gulf or up in Alaska, to the point where OPEC sees we’re serious about being less dependent on their oil – and it seems like there would be more money available for people to make their house payments.
We don't need a bailout, we need to get gas back down below $3 a gallon.
But it seems to me that the crisis, in a nutshell, can be traced to the fact that if you’re paying $100 a week to put gas in your car (or more), whereas previously, you were paying only $30 or $40, then that sure as hell is going to eat into your house payment.
I'm just saying.
Maybe it’s a bit too simplistic, because overreliance on easy credit is surely a culprit, but I think that there’s way too much brainpower being devoted to overanalysis of the situation when the answer is right there.
Bring down fuel prices – open up more drilling in the West or down in the Gulf or up in Alaska, to the point where OPEC sees we’re serious about being less dependent on their oil – and it seems like there would be more money available for people to make their house payments.
We don't need a bailout, we need to get gas back down below $3 a gallon.
March Malaise. (Caution: boring sports rambling)
I love March Madness, but this year is the first time in years (that I can recall, anyway) that I didn’t fill out a bracket. It’s to the point where I get to be just about bracketed out by the time Thursday of the tournament’s first week rolls around.
To that end, this is the first tournament in years (that I can recall, anyway) that I have truly enjoyed - probably the first since 1987, when IU won its last championship. I admit that I was kind of a back-on-the-bandwagon IU fan when they made their improbable 2002 run – my wedding was on the Saturday of the Final Four, and the band made sure to provide the reception crowd running updates of the IU defeat of Oklahoma. I was a bit swept up in the euphoria at that point, but not enough to assuage my hurt feelings that I still hold to this day about the Bob Knight firing. (Tangent alert.)
(“It’s been almost eight years; get over it,” you say.
(“No,” I reply. I just re-read Knight’s autobiography and am sincerely flabbergasted at his treatment by the university in the waning days of his tenure there, not to mention the beatings by the media that he absorbed over the course of his 29 years there. Even if the names at the university have changed since then, the M.O. remains the same, as the university’s shoddy treatment of Dan Dakich – a Knight disciple and a coach that I think I could have truly gotten behind – can attest:
(“We support you so much that we’re putting a 10-person committee in place to look at a permanent replacement for Kelvin Sampson, and we support you so much that we’re going to announce the formation of this committee on the Monday of the week of the NCAA tournament,” the university told Dakich. “Now go get ‘em and lay the groundwork for your replacement.”
(On top of all that, the team, quite frankly, quit on Dakich when their preferred assistant wasn’t promoted to head coach after the Sampson firing, and I don’t think a combination of George S. Patton, Vince Lombardi and Dr. Phil could have led Team Death Spiral to victory under those circumstances.)
Anyway, back to the tournament. As a sports fan, I read several sports websites, watch ESPNews when my son hasn’t hijacked the TV, and generally try to keep up with the goings-on with the teams and sports I enjoy. But I’ve said it here before, and I’ll say it again: I get tired of all the shouting. And the wall-to-wall analysis of every possible angle in the run-up to the tournament burns me out:
Western Kentucky could beat Drake, and they probably will, but only if Courtney Lee shoots better than 45 percent from the field … however, Drake is 29-4 for a reason, and Adam Emmenecker will carry them to victory … but the game is on a Friday, and Western Kentucky is 3-0 on Friday games at neutral sites, but they are only 1-2 against teams from the Missouri Valley Conference whose mascots are from the animal kingdom … but Drake won the automatic bid from the Missouri Valley, and teams that have won the automatic bid from that conference are only 14-12 in the last 12 years in the tournament … oh, and it’s a 5-12 matchup, and we know – know! – what kind of pitfalls that can present to the 5 seed … but the dude from Fox Sports brought up a very good point, that schools that end in vowels have not advanced past the Sweet 16 since 2007, and that’s really something to think about … and Drake beat a team that had just lost a teammate to a car wreck/projectile leprosy/shingles/ennui, so if they can put away a team that plays with that kind of inspired effort, then they will be dangerous in the tournament …
Ugh. (And, after all that analysis, Western Kentucky won on a freak 30-footer at the buzzer in overtime, which I don’t think anyone accounted for.)
Then you have the window-licking fans of sports talk radio who congregate on these websites and talk smack, and there’s NOTHING I HATE MORE THAN HEARING PEOPLE TALK SMACK. I even hate that phrase, “talking smack,” and I’m going to hell for even using it. Seriously, though – I think confidence in your chosen team(s) is great, but God, do you have to be such a dick about it?
Imagine that times 64, and you wonder why I’m so burned out.
****
So you can include March Madness on my list of Shit They’ve Fucked Up. (The “they” in this case would be the sports media, with a huge assist from the over-testosteroned sports talk radio crowd.)
My three favorite sporting events of the year - the NCAA tournament, the Indiana high school basketball tournament and the Indy 500 - are all on the list of Shit They’ve Fucked Up.
A caveat: The Indy 500 is on its way to being Shit They’ve Fucked Up But Fixed – we’ll see how reunification treats The Greatest Spectacle In Racing come May – but for now remains on the list. (If they have more than 34 cars entered for the race, creating actual Bump Day drama on that final qualifying Sunday, then I’ll remove it from the list.) (They = Tony George, who may be vindicated in short order.)
And the Indiana high school basketball tournament is irrevocably on the list of Shit They’ve Fucked Up, when they decided to take the purest high school event in the history of the world and turn it into T-ball, where everyone gets a trophy, where Participation is as important as Winning. (They = the IHSAA, with a huge assist from self-esteem gurus who think that feeling good about oneself is more important than playing to win)
Also, not on my list of favorites above but just as saddening, NASCAR is on the list of Shit They’ve Fucked Up, for various reasons (Car of Tomorrow – errr, Today – the sanitizing of personalities, the emergence of Toyota, moving races from historically significant tracks like Darlington and Rockingham to insignificant, inconsequential, bor-r-r-r-ing tracks like California, waiting till 2 in the morning Eastern time to postpone a race due to rain, Boogity Boogity Boogity). (They = NASCAR, bowing to the television god.)
Major League Baseball is on the list of Shit They’ve Fucked Up, because every – every! – historically significant achievement will now and forevermore be tainted by the question of, “Is he or isn’t he on the juice?” (They = the chemists who spend their time in labs trying to create the next undetectable drug that will help a person hit a ball 20 feet farther or throw a ball 3 mph faster, with an assist from the players who take them - I hope the health trade-off is worth it.)
The NBA would normally on the list of Shit They’ve Fucked Up, except I haven’t gave much of a shit about it for years. (They = The People Who Didn’t Make a Bionic Back for Larry Bird So He Could Play Forever)
The NFL is not on the list of Shit They’ve Fucked Up, but give it time; I’m certain They will Fuck it Up as well. (When they do, I’m sure the They will be Bill Belichick. Maybe Brett Favre, but most likely Bill Belichick.)
I hate it when They take Shit I like and Fuck It Up.
To that end, this is the first tournament in years (that I can recall, anyway) that I have truly enjoyed - probably the first since 1987, when IU won its last championship. I admit that I was kind of a back-on-the-bandwagon IU fan when they made their improbable 2002 run – my wedding was on the Saturday of the Final Four, and the band made sure to provide the reception crowd running updates of the IU defeat of Oklahoma. I was a bit swept up in the euphoria at that point, but not enough to assuage my hurt feelings that I still hold to this day about the Bob Knight firing. (Tangent alert.)
(“It’s been almost eight years; get over it,” you say.
(“No,” I reply. I just re-read Knight’s autobiography and am sincerely flabbergasted at his treatment by the university in the waning days of his tenure there, not to mention the beatings by the media that he absorbed over the course of his 29 years there. Even if the names at the university have changed since then, the M.O. remains the same, as the university’s shoddy treatment of Dan Dakich – a Knight disciple and a coach that I think I could have truly gotten behind – can attest:
(“We support you so much that we’re putting a 10-person committee in place to look at a permanent replacement for Kelvin Sampson, and we support you so much that we’re going to announce the formation of this committee on the Monday of the week of the NCAA tournament,” the university told Dakich. “Now go get ‘em and lay the groundwork for your replacement.”
(On top of all that, the team, quite frankly, quit on Dakich when their preferred assistant wasn’t promoted to head coach after the Sampson firing, and I don’t think a combination of George S. Patton, Vince Lombardi and Dr. Phil could have led Team Death Spiral to victory under those circumstances.)
Anyway, back to the tournament. As a sports fan, I read several sports websites, watch ESPNews when my son hasn’t hijacked the TV, and generally try to keep up with the goings-on with the teams and sports I enjoy. But I’ve said it here before, and I’ll say it again: I get tired of all the shouting. And the wall-to-wall analysis of every possible angle in the run-up to the tournament burns me out:
Western Kentucky could beat Drake, and they probably will, but only if Courtney Lee shoots better than 45 percent from the field … however, Drake is 29-4 for a reason, and Adam Emmenecker will carry them to victory … but the game is on a Friday, and Western Kentucky is 3-0 on Friday games at neutral sites, but they are only 1-2 against teams from the Missouri Valley Conference whose mascots are from the animal kingdom … but Drake won the automatic bid from the Missouri Valley, and teams that have won the automatic bid from that conference are only 14-12 in the last 12 years in the tournament … oh, and it’s a 5-12 matchup, and we know – know! – what kind of pitfalls that can present to the 5 seed … but the dude from Fox Sports brought up a very good point, that schools that end in vowels have not advanced past the Sweet 16 since 2007, and that’s really something to think about … and Drake beat a team that had just lost a teammate to a car wreck/projectile leprosy/shingles/ennui, so if they can put away a team that plays with that kind of inspired effort, then they will be dangerous in the tournament …
Ugh. (And, after all that analysis, Western Kentucky won on a freak 30-footer at the buzzer in overtime, which I don’t think anyone accounted for.)
Then you have the window-licking fans of sports talk radio who congregate on these websites and talk smack, and there’s NOTHING I HATE MORE THAN HEARING PEOPLE TALK SMACK. I even hate that phrase, “talking smack,” and I’m going to hell for even using it. Seriously, though – I think confidence in your chosen team(s) is great, but God, do you have to be such a dick about it?
Imagine that times 64, and you wonder why I’m so burned out.
****
So you can include March Madness on my list of Shit They’ve Fucked Up. (The “they” in this case would be the sports media, with a huge assist from the over-testosteroned sports talk radio crowd.)
My three favorite sporting events of the year - the NCAA tournament, the Indiana high school basketball tournament and the Indy 500 - are all on the list of Shit They’ve Fucked Up.
A caveat: The Indy 500 is on its way to being Shit They’ve Fucked Up But Fixed – we’ll see how reunification treats The Greatest Spectacle In Racing come May – but for now remains on the list. (If they have more than 34 cars entered for the race, creating actual Bump Day drama on that final qualifying Sunday, then I’ll remove it from the list.) (They = Tony George, who may be vindicated in short order.)
And the Indiana high school basketball tournament is irrevocably on the list of Shit They’ve Fucked Up, when they decided to take the purest high school event in the history of the world and turn it into T-ball, where everyone gets a trophy, where Participation is as important as Winning. (They = the IHSAA, with a huge assist from self-esteem gurus who think that feeling good about oneself is more important than playing to win)
Also, not on my list of favorites above but just as saddening, NASCAR is on the list of Shit They’ve Fucked Up, for various reasons (Car of Tomorrow – errr, Today – the sanitizing of personalities, the emergence of Toyota, moving races from historically significant tracks like Darlington and Rockingham to insignificant, inconsequential, bor-r-r-r-ing tracks like California, waiting till 2 in the morning Eastern time to postpone a race due to rain, Boogity Boogity Boogity). (They = NASCAR, bowing to the television god.)
Major League Baseball is on the list of Shit They’ve Fucked Up, because every – every! – historically significant achievement will now and forevermore be tainted by the question of, “Is he or isn’t he on the juice?” (They = the chemists who spend their time in labs trying to create the next undetectable drug that will help a person hit a ball 20 feet farther or throw a ball 3 mph faster, with an assist from the players who take them - I hope the health trade-off is worth it.)
The NBA would normally on the list of Shit They’ve Fucked Up, except I haven’t gave much of a shit about it for years. (They = The People Who Didn’t Make a Bionic Back for Larry Bird So He Could Play Forever)
The NFL is not on the list of Shit They’ve Fucked Up, but give it time; I’m certain They will Fuck it Up as well. (When they do, I’m sure the They will be Bill Belichick. Maybe Brett Favre, but most likely Bill Belichick.)
I hate it when They take Shit I like and Fuck It Up.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
water's up
The following is a public service announcement:
Southern Indiana received as much as 6 inches of rain in some places since Monday, and other locations in the Midwest received even more. While creeks and rivers in the area are not expected to rise to levels seen in the record flood of 2005, they will still be out of their banks for the forseeable future. Bramble Tamble would like to take a moment to remind you:
Don't drink brown water.
That is all.
Southern Indiana received as much as 6 inches of rain in some places since Monday, and other locations in the Midwest received even more. While creeks and rivers in the area are not expected to rise to levels seen in the record flood of 2005, they will still be out of their banks for the forseeable future. Bramble Tamble would like to take a moment to remind you:
Don't drink brown water.
That is all.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
From the Archives: A self-deprecating look at negotiating.
Last night, I found a paper I wrote for school about three years ago. It was an assignment about my negotiating style; I answered a bunch of questions about my tendencies, and the end result was that the respondent was put into one or two different categories (N1, N2, N3, etc.) based on those tendencies. Then, to complete the assignment, you had to write a three-page paper about it.
As the below was only a first draft, I didn't end up turning this paper in. Still, it was significantly better (and less sanitized) than what I did end up turning in. Regardless, I'm sharing it with you strictly for the amusement factor, even if it does tell you all you would ever need to know about me.
****
My negotiating style profile turned out as expected. As a person who abhors conflict and will do just about anything to stay out of the way of it, I had suspected before completing the profile that my scores would reflect a combination of N3 (accommodate) and N4 (withdraw) behaviors. N1 (defeat) showed up in the "very low" range, as I suspected it would, and N2 (collaborate) and N5 (compromise) behaviors were in the average-to-high range.
The N3 style revolves around accommodating the other party's needs. Promoting harmony, avoiding substantive differences, yielding to pressure to preserve the relationship, and placing interpersonal relationships above the fairness of the outcome are all traits of the N3 style, and they are also traits that I am familiar with using in interpersonal negotiations. "Keep the peace at any price necessary" is a credo I find myself living by.
The other style that I often use in negotiating is the N4 style, which involves a low degree of concern for the substance of the negotiation and the relationship with the other parties. This most often occurs in my business relationships, like when I avoid phone calls from the mortgage people or the car loan people when I get behind on my payments. I have a feeling of powerlessness and resignation that I am going to get fucked, and that I am only going to get what the other party is willing to concede. (And on that last point, I'm certainly not going to ask for it.) The gist of my behavior is to withdraw and remove myself from the situation – just get it over with.
There were several statements in the questionnaire that we were asked to score ourselves on that, if there were any responses higher than "completely characteristic," I would have marked that one instead. Number 24, which states, "I often let others take responsibility for solving the problem," was on that I would have answered as "super-duper completely characteristic of me" if that were one of the options. I would suspect that a lot of this has to do with the fact that I grew up an only child, and as such, I often heard about how spoiled I was, and how I wasn't concerned with anyone else. I was told how wrong it was to be selfish and how one should always, in any circumstance, be considerate of other people. I've since learned that this isn't always the proper course of action to take, and I've been reading a lot of Ayn Rand to try and overcome this feeling. (I would probably follow her a lot more closely if she weren't in hell now for being so godless.)
Still, habits are hard to break, and as a result, at least in my interpersonal relationships, I find myself often bending over backwards to make sure that the other party's needs are satisfied. If that involves seeing to it that they solve the problem the way they see fit while completely fucking me sideways in the process, so be it. Even in my marriage, I refuse to make any decisions, no matter how small or inconsequential they are. From deciding what to watch on TV to deciding what we should have for supper, I find that I have no opinion or preference, because "getting my way" isn't important to me. "Please, just make a decision, I don't care" are words that are often bandied about in our house. I feel that otherwise, if I stated an opinion, it would just mean that I had to have my way (as I was inexplicably often told growing up). That's not screwed up or nothing, is it?
My negotiating style is a natural extension of this aversion to "having my way." (I would also guess that another reason I "let others take responsibility for solving a problem" absolves me completely of any responsibility if the solution fails. To that end, I don't believe that I've made a decision that involves other people since roughly 1991.)
This "take it squarely up the ass early and often" philosophy can also be found in my response to statement number 4, "I often feel I lack the power to produce a successful outcome." If one of the possible selections was "Does a bear shit in the woods?", I would have marked that one. I don't feel like I have much to offer to anyone in the way of concessions, and as such, a successful outcome to most difficult decisions or negotiations hinges entirely on the other party's capability or willingness to do so, because I don't care – regardless of any actions I take, I am going to find a way to screw myself anyway.
This exercise has caused me to think a lot about why I get fucked so often. But at the end of the day, I don't know that I really want to change, because I overheard others in the class talking about "taking all that you can get" and "doing unto others before they do unto you." How repugnant. I would be a lot more of a people person if it weren't for people.
As the below was only a first draft, I didn't end up turning this paper in. Still, it was significantly better (and less sanitized) than what I did end up turning in. Regardless, I'm sharing it with you strictly for the amusement factor, even if it does tell you all you would ever need to know about me.
****
My negotiating style profile turned out as expected. As a person who abhors conflict and will do just about anything to stay out of the way of it, I had suspected before completing the profile that my scores would reflect a combination of N3 (accommodate) and N4 (withdraw) behaviors. N1 (defeat) showed up in the "very low" range, as I suspected it would, and N2 (collaborate) and N5 (compromise) behaviors were in the average-to-high range.
The N3 style revolves around accommodating the other party's needs. Promoting harmony, avoiding substantive differences, yielding to pressure to preserve the relationship, and placing interpersonal relationships above the fairness of the outcome are all traits of the N3 style, and they are also traits that I am familiar with using in interpersonal negotiations. "Keep the peace at any price necessary" is a credo I find myself living by.
The other style that I often use in negotiating is the N4 style, which involves a low degree of concern for the substance of the negotiation and the relationship with the other parties. This most often occurs in my business relationships, like when I avoid phone calls from the mortgage people or the car loan people when I get behind on my payments. I have a feeling of powerlessness and resignation that I am going to get fucked, and that I am only going to get what the other party is willing to concede. (And on that last point, I'm certainly not going to ask for it.) The gist of my behavior is to withdraw and remove myself from the situation – just get it over with.
There were several statements in the questionnaire that we were asked to score ourselves on that, if there were any responses higher than "completely characteristic," I would have marked that one instead. Number 24, which states, "I often let others take responsibility for solving the problem," was on that I would have answered as "super-duper completely characteristic of me" if that were one of the options. I would suspect that a lot of this has to do with the fact that I grew up an only child, and as such, I often heard about how spoiled I was, and how I wasn't concerned with anyone else. I was told how wrong it was to be selfish and how one should always, in any circumstance, be considerate of other people. I've since learned that this isn't always the proper course of action to take, and I've been reading a lot of Ayn Rand to try and overcome this feeling. (I would probably follow her a lot more closely if she weren't in hell now for being so godless.)
Still, habits are hard to break, and as a result, at least in my interpersonal relationships, I find myself often bending over backwards to make sure that the other party's needs are satisfied. If that involves seeing to it that they solve the problem the way they see fit while completely fucking me sideways in the process, so be it. Even in my marriage, I refuse to make any decisions, no matter how small or inconsequential they are. From deciding what to watch on TV to deciding what we should have for supper, I find that I have no opinion or preference, because "getting my way" isn't important to me. "Please, just make a decision, I don't care" are words that are often bandied about in our house. I feel that otherwise, if I stated an opinion, it would just mean that I had to have my way (as I was inexplicably often told growing up). That's not screwed up or nothing, is it?
My negotiating style is a natural extension of this aversion to "having my way." (I would also guess that another reason I "let others take responsibility for solving a problem" absolves me completely of any responsibility if the solution fails. To that end, I don't believe that I've made a decision that involves other people since roughly 1991.)
This "take it squarely up the ass early and often" philosophy can also be found in my response to statement number 4, "I often feel I lack the power to produce a successful outcome." If one of the possible selections was "Does a bear shit in the woods?", I would have marked that one. I don't feel like I have much to offer to anyone in the way of concessions, and as such, a successful outcome to most difficult decisions or negotiations hinges entirely on the other party's capability or willingness to do so, because I don't care – regardless of any actions I take, I am going to find a way to screw myself anyway.
This exercise has caused me to think a lot about why I get fucked so often. But at the end of the day, I don't know that I really want to change, because I overheard others in the class talking about "taking all that you can get" and "doing unto others before they do unto you." How repugnant. I would be a lot more of a people person if it weren't for people.
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