The masochistic art of the public decline

The other day, I got an Evite from my agency, inviting the talent pool out to a local eatery for an appreciation happy hour.  Personally, I like these things, because it’s a good way to network with my fellow designers, as well as the occasional former client, who may or may not inquire about my working status, and make nice-nice with the agents that it does me good to be on their good side, and the hopeful off-chance that there will be some attractive like-minded snarky design nerd girl that I can shamelessly flirt with.

Looking at the Evite, which was obviously sent to well over 100 people, the ratio of yes/maybe/no was easily 30/40/30%.  The yes responses are fairly simple, people exclaiming their looking forward to the event, if anything at all.  The maybe responses are a little more snooty, with people obviously being non-committal to the event as a whole, and probably seeing it as a third-option, in the event that nothing better comes along to consume two pre-dinner hours of the afternoon.  But it’s the no responses that I find the greatest amount of amusement in.  Whereas a lot of people are pretty short and to the point when saying yes or maybe, when it comes to saying no, all these designers, grunt workers and other snobs really need to let everyone else know why they can’t make it to this pedestrian, plebeian happy hour.

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