association-based loyalty

[cellio]

When we were visiting my parents last week, my father asked me if I had heard that "[your] school's team won the [cryptic string of letters] championship". Huh? I said. It turned out he was talking about the football team from my high school, which had just won some regional tournament.

He seemed to assume in all seriousness that I would have some loyalty to this team or that I would care. My only connection to it is having graduated from that school more than 20 years ago. I don't know the players or coach, nor do I have any past association with high-school sports.

It's not just my father and high-school sports, of course. It's kind of expected that sports fans will root for the home team -- and that voters will vote for the local candidate, and that people will generally show some pride when someone who shares ethnicity, an alma mater, or the like does something noteworthy.

I don't care about such factors, however. For me, it's all about relevant factors, quality chief among them. Now I might end up knowing more about the similar person/team/company/whatever, and that may lead to favor, but the favor does not derive directly from the connection.

I don't root for the US teams at the Olympics or the Steelers/Pirates here. (Bad example, I know, because I don't follow football or baseball anyway, but if I did, I wouldn't necessarily favor those teams. I would favor the teams that showed the best balance of skill and sportsmanship, whoever they are.) I don't vote for politicians just because they're from my neighborhood/county/state, or women, or Jewish, or Carnegie-Mellon alums, or (speaking theoretically) SCA members or coworkers.

Now there are some areas where having something in common can affect a decision. In an election for city council, the guy who actually lives here and participates in the community has an edge over the guy with a local post-office box who's never seen on the streets. Or, if all other factors are equal (which they rarely are), I'd probably vote for the candidate who shares my religious views, because those views can affect how one governs (or judges, since we elect judges here). But that's not at all the same thing as favoring the secular Jew just because he's named Rosenblum.

I've seen a lot of campaigns that amounted to "vote to put a woman in office" or "vote for the home-town candidate". (And, of course, the "vote party line" appeals.) That sort of thing is actually less likely to get my vote, because they should have been talking about issues instead of appealing to my presumed "nationalism" ("statism"? "townism"?).

Now voting is important and sports are not, but I suspect that a lot of people base loyalties on the same kinds of factors in both. But I just don't feel that connection -- that someone went to the same school or lives in the same town is casually interesting, in a small-talk sort of way, but not really relevant.

Comments

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

Fortunately for me, most of America doesn't think the way you do, or I would have been forced to do honest work after college. I paid off most of my tuition bills selling real estate.

Rule One: Find *something* you have in common. "You could always use the extra bedroom for your hobbies. Do you have any hobbies? Really? What a co-incidence! I love fly-fishing/deer hunting/hang gliding/bungee jumping/fire walking! We'll have to get together some weekend after you've settled into your new home."

Mind you, I never lied about the house I was showing. If it was in a flood zone, I told you about it. It was just my personal life that accomidated some stretching.

Rule Two: The client is better at it than you are. By at least two units. If he tells you about bagging a ten-point buck, you don't mention the twelve-pointer you have in your den. The best you ever did was a six point buck.

What amazed me was how well this actually works. Everytime there's a lull in the conversation ask his advice about fly-fishing, hunting whatever. Where do you get your equipment? How do you handle the problem of ... They'll stay with you through two dozen plus houses if they think they have a common interest in you.

[cellio]

Wow, I didn't know about your shady past. :-)

Did you ever get tripped up by pretending to interests/background you didn't have? "What's your favorite type of lure?" "I'm new to the city; tell me about getting a hunting license here." "Are there any local ordinaces I have to worry about with firwalking?"

If you ever get caught faking it, you're probably history as far as this customer is concerned.

Or maybe not -- there's enough fake sincerity out there that maybe people are innoculated against it. Nobody believes anything a car salesman says, after all. It's a deal-killer for me (because how do I know that you won't also lie about the house?), but we've already established that I'm not normal. :-)

Everytime there's a lull in the conversation ask his advice about fly-fishing, hunting whatever.

This makes sense -- and could actually be done without the part where you give yourself hobbies. I'm sure that some of the service providers I've used haven't really been interested in the SCA, for instance, but if they saw the armor or crossbow or scrolls or whatever and asked about 'em, that was enough to get me talking. Moral: find customers with weird paraphenalia. :-)

Weird Paraphenalia...

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

You know, around here that has a whole different dimension.... ;-)