Mountains n Other Stuff I Like

The Need to Stay

I was just looking at how Sally was doing and

Switching from from Scream to Laughter is a lot easier than switching from being a coal or oil plant to, e.g. Solar. It’s the same technology (closet doors) and the same distribution and collection system. The only change is the front line workers, and given that laughter is so much more powerful, even a bad comedian could keep their job.

Waternoose isn’t running the De Beers company, happily creating/exploiting a fake shortage to get richer. The City is suffering from regular brownouts and he’s about to lose the Company, that’s why he needed to start kidnapping and soul-sucking random kids. If he knew about Laughter, he could’ve switched over for the cost of a few nights of comedy training for the scarers.

Monsters, Incorporated, in the movie, is the lie of the Old Company, and Sully is the Company Man. If you show up, and do your work, the Company will take care of you and your community. Sully is proud to be a Scarer, not because it proves he’s cool or because he’s the best, but because hes proud to be part of this Great Work that supports the city. Monsters, Inc makes electricity and he gets to be part of that.

Mr Waternoose isn’t his Boss, some old coot in charge who doesn’t get the little guy: he’s a former scarer himself, a mentor to Sully. He might own and run the factory because it’s been in his family for generations, but he gets it! He presents himself as wanting good scarers not just because it makes him money but because the Company Needs It. He doesn’t want to lose the company not just because he wants to be rich but because he’s presenting himself as part of a system the city needs.

It’s a very out of the 50s idea, the company you work for your whole life and in exchange it takes care of you. It’s a very liberal sort of idea, honestly, this marriage of Labor and Capital.

And the film’s criticism is that The Company was a lie, it was not this happy family here to care for you, it was willing to do atrocities to keep from collapsing and it was willing to kill anyone—even the Golden Boy Sully—that might threaten that. You cannot, actually, trust Waternoose, however he presents himself—he is not your Dad, he is your Boss.

"The hat is customizable," he said, struggling with the velcro patch on the front. "If I need it, I have an ICE one too. I pick based off the business i walk into."

"Customizable is an important hat descriptor," I said. "what can I get you?"

"You wouldn't believe how offended people get these days," he said. "And I'm supposed to do something about it if you're offended? You chose to be offended!"

"We all have hundreds of thousands of decisions everyday," I said. I thickened my accent. "That's what my stepdad always said. But I can make one easier - we have a delicious Ethiopian roast available."

"Like if I told you you have a bull ring," he said, "because bulls have rings in their noses. Is that offensive?"

I laughed. "I've heard that before."

"It's a joke, but people get offended. Maybe you're offended."

I looked at him. I smiled. "You aren't trying to offend me though, right?"

Of course he was. I was being friendly and the friendlier I was, the faster he switched topics. He was saying anything inflammatory he could think of to see if I'd take the bait. After about 20 minutes of my redirecting and deescalating, he settled into a more normal interaction. He took up too much of my time showing me a product I'd feigned mild interest in to get him to stop talking about getting accused of inappropriate behavior at work. When we finally disengaged, he spent 10 minutes trying to catch my eye again. When he failed, he left.

There's this new breed of customer who insists on trying to incite political conversation through their clothing and, when that doesnt work, their snide little comments. If I owned my own business, maybe I would have given the guy the fight he wanted. But I work for a corporation and I love paying my bills so I deescalated.