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One-Up Stairway
I don’t like a lot of things. This makes me cynical, I suppose. Some might say that I don’t like certain things as some sort of way to build myself up, a defensive self-conscious response. I obviously, don’t like that idea. Instead, I’ll argue that my selective tastes have refining qualities - by identifying what I don’t like, I am forming into someone I want to be. At least that sounds better than being a grouch.
I have noticed a personality trend in my “profession,” a certain quality in several people I work with that bothers me. You might know this person as one who will always be better than you - have better stories, done better things, knows better people…etc. I, of course, am describing a “One-Upper.” Being in a conversation with this person is like climbing a flight of stairs. For everything you do or say, they shoot right back with something just slightly better than you that they have done or said.
As I run into other crews at various hospitals throughout my day at work, we usually make small talk about our day - often, certain calls that might stand out. If I were to mention a car accident that I had earlier, One-Upper will come back with a war story of a call they perviously ran (usually years earlier) of cars waltzing on the highway, ending in the death of four, which had it not been for them, seven more surely would have perished. Often with this type of person, the phrase “shit hit the fan” is used at least once per story.
After One-Upper tells me a story like that, I can do one of two things: acknowledge that they have been to hell and back and surely have seen it all, or, come back with an even better story - often involving the maiming of me for the saving of thousands. Sacrifice goes over well in getting a foothold over a One-Upper. I always choose to drop the conversation. I simply cannot beat a One-Upper. I don’t have the self-absorption to keep coming back with something better than them, nor more importantly, the story-telling ability.
When you come across someone you can identify as a One-Upper, give up. If you are anything like me, you lack the gluteals to climb the one-upper stairway to self-fulfillment.
That was a metaphor, though. I have great glutes.
Discussion
5 comments for “One-Up Stairway”
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I don’t know what one would call it, but when I was a kid, in the churchy circles I ran in, there was something like that. Only, instead of saving lives or having a more gruesome story to tell, people would one up each other by having a worse condition to suffer. If you had had a flat tire, they had a car wreck. If your mom was sick, their dad died. If you had a cold, they had cancer. Oddly enough… no, I guess perfectly enough, it was in this environment that a girl who was faking cancer was able to find a home and a bunch of suckers to take care of her. I would play the game by saying how great things were going when someone else was being a baby.
Maybe you should try being the anti-one-upper and for every story of heroism or gore someone tells, share how you let a vanload of infants die because you had someting in your eye.
“Wow, Robert what a great blog, your story had everything.” Is that what you want to hear? When are these one-uppers ever going to quit?
I do want to hear that; that’s why I write great blogs that have everything.
And I’ll never quit one-uppers. They’re the only thing that get me through the day.
Guess where I got this direct quote:
“Hey does anyone remeber last christmas when we all changed our myspace names to fit in with the holiday somehow? That was fun. I just thought about it.”
I thought your blog could use a good game, I was kind of bored.
Your site is looking nice!