The Art of Peoplewatching

As you could have gathered by the title, this blurb is about people. If I had to pick my favorite spectator sport, it would definitely be People-watching. People-watching is one of the most predictable and entertaining activities to do. I don't care what people say, it is an art form: you must know where to look, when to look, and of course, how to look; if you can do all of these, you can see the best people-watching because it's only when people don't think they are being watched do they do the most entertaining and embarrassing things. I should know, I'm here, by the pool side, casting my hours away by watching people amuse themselves as they place their lives in my hands.

You can tell so much about a person's character just by their actions. To put it in simpler yet more complicated terms a person's character insights can be given if we observe their passing from point A to point B, their conversation with child C or friend D or parent E, and of course any other action F that so may occur during our watching. If you were to observe enough people, you will notice patterns of behavior.

Okay, back to pool. To give you a brief background, I work at a community center pool. The people who live in the housing complex that the pool serves are either professionals who work all day, retired people, and of course, a few, but very little number of kids and stay-at-home moms.

That is why I'm sitting here, bored out of my mind: it is Tuesday. The housing complex is mostly empty right now except for the occasional mailman, UPS truck, or people walking their dogs. Not very exciting place to work right now. Let me share then just some things I have observed during my time. Let's take a walk.

Professionals:

I figured this would be the most appropriate topic to start on, considering where I am now, and the lack of number of people present at the pool. Let me explain. Our society is based on money. There, I said it. There is so much emphasis on money and "comfort" that people will sacrifice long, grueling hours of hard strenuous work to achieve this. The life of a professional is sad; most of his or her life is spent either in a car, office, or...of course, on a cell phone.

Cell phones have become such a key part of our society. I know this partly because I hear many different tunes, beeps, and other noises doing my job here. They will just be sitting in the sun, trying to relax I guess, but not really; they get a call, a beep, whatever, and they soon go back to their usual routine of business and money. That's how it all is. Money, work, money, work: it's an endless cycle. Another thing I have noticed in my short time at this workplace: people almost have to go out-of-town, better yet, out-of-country, to get away from the stresses of their work, of this painstaking corporate world; that is, as long as they "forget" the pager and cell phone at home.

So what if the cell phone is not charged up and the pager is turned off? Well, maybe the professional we speak of is at work...or, on his journey to or from work. Yes, traffic. Nothing like bumper-to-bumper traffic to fill your mornings and evenings. Something I would just love to wake up to and go to bed to every night.......not really. Thank God for the radio, keeps some sanity, and tones down those reckless drivers. Hold on, I didn't say there were no reckless drivers. So it seems that some this has a somewhat reverse effect.

Now, a professional's family is a different topic. Ooops, is that an oximoron? Okay, so maybe the average professional doesn't have much time for his family. Some make a conscious decision of work over family, some try to balance both in a circus-like manner, and others, which sadly make up a greater number of the people I know, have lost tune with their families, becoming completely engrossed with their "careers".

Whatever happened to the phrase "family comes first"..I think it died long ago. Today, time that was usually spent within the family can easily be supplemented through other means. For instance, need a babysitter?...well, you could hire the 13 year old kid around the corner who is looking for some MONEY because they can't get a real job...or, you could just plug your child into a television, computer, any monitor will do. What about cleaning the house? Oh, that's easy, just pay a recently arrived (probably Hispanic) maid big bucks to come to your house while you are gone and trust he or she to actually clean it, praying that maybe they won't discover your nice, expensive diamond ring in your dresser that's been in the family for generations. And, well, any of the other normal "family" activities can be taken care of by father Internet....that's Mr. Internet, to you.


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