Crap: How to Deal with Annoying Teachers, Bosses, Backstabbers, and Other Stuff that Stinks - Softcover

Before you can understand what to do with crap, you need to know how to identify it. This is where the science of crapology comes in. Becoming a skilled crapologist—that is, learning how to distinguish one type of crap from another—can help you anticipate what may be coming your way. That can make the crap easier to contend with, or avoid entirely. Here are the four basic types of crap.

What Is This Crap?

1. Crap From the Management.

This type comes from parents, teachers, bosses, and anyone who has authority over you. Common complaints are directed at marathon texting and video game-playing sessions, homework handed in late, tardiness to work, and other random "problems." For instance, you might get crap for hardly ever being home one week, and for hardly ever leaving your room the next.

Management crap can turn particularly nasty if comparisons become a part of it—which is all about being judged, usually against someone else or someone else’s idea of who you are (or aren’t). You might be compared to your sibling, the class brainiac, the school suck-up, your tennis team partner, or the community do-gooder. You may get slammed for how much better "young people used to be back in the day"—or even for not living up to your own former behavior. This twist on crap sucks for a whole slew of reasons, especially because it basically discounts all of the great qualities you actually do have.

2. Crap From Your Peers.

This is the crap that comes from people about the same age as you. Think of all those backstabbing friends, jealous or cheating significant others, lame coworkers who won’t cover for you when you need a day off, and siblings who steal your stuff or rat you out to your parents whenever they catch you doing something you’re not supposed to be doing.

3. Crap From Yourself.

This is one of the most common forms of crap, and it’s the one you are probably most blind to (people generally think that crap is thrust upon them by external forces). This type appears in many forms, the harshest of which is self-criticism (see page 50). You are a fan of this kind of crap if you berate yourself for: failing a test even when you studied for it, disappointing a friend or parent, locking yourself out of the house or car, losing your brother’s favorite watch, or being a few pounds overweight or underweight. You can also give yourself crap by behaving in a way that you know will adversely affect your life (i.e., acting like a jerk, stealing your best friend’s boyfriend/girlfriend, or partying the night before a history final).

4. Crap From the Universe.

Some people refer to this as "bad luck" (or even bad karma—see page 84). Examples: Your prom is scheduled for the same weekend as your family’s (obligatory) annual reunion; your bunny dies from some rare disease that affects .0001 percent of all bunnies; you come down with the flu the night before your date with the guy/ girl you have been eyeing for two years.