I don't have the patience to write a book...

If you’ve ever had a management or leadership class, I’m sure you’ve had to read, or at least have heard of, the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. Well now I have created my own list: 7 Habits of Highly Obnoxious People. This list is for anyone who aspires to become more obnoxious or would like to diagnose the level of their current obnoxiousness.

7 Habits of Highly Obnoxious People by MJ

1. Thinking you know what’s best for me more than me or my doctor. Are you my mother? No? Then shut up. Unless, I ask you please don’t tell me what food I should be eating for a healthy colon. Don’t tell me about natural cures – Kevin Trudeau is an idiot and a criminal. Don’t tell me about some great new exercise program that “works” for you. Good for you, I’m glad, but everything that works for you doesn’t work for everybody. As much as I love free stuff, I pay someone to tell me how to be healthy. Pardon me if I say “thanks anyway.”

2. Stating your opinion as fact. “George Bush is a fascist.” What? You need to precede that verbal diarrhea with “I think,” and you need to end that statement with some evidence to back it up. “National health care is a good idea.” Huh? Not only are you in desperate need of a punch to the gut and a simple economics course, you again need to find a good prefix to that sentence. If I enjoyed listening to crappy opinions, I would turn on CNN. At least they are more original than you are at making up ignorant things to say.

3. Starting an argument of fact with “well, I believe…” Or backing your argument with citations from Wikipedia. If you are going to argue something, you cannot start with “I think,” “I believe,” or “In my opinion.” Good for you. I’m glad you “think,” “believe,” or have an “opinion,” but really that only shows that you at least have a low-level functioning brain. To argue effectively, please state facts. Otherwise, maybe you should have majored in philosophy. Also, Wikipedia (or other Internet sources) are not reliable enough to base arguments on. Stating “well, that’s what it says on Wikipedia, on a blog, on E!s website” does not help your argument. It hurts it.

4. Believing every bit of trash that is forwarded into your email in-box. This is the reason why snopes.com was created. Please use it before you forward me some sad story about how this girl without any legs in Ghana has gone missing, and how if I don’t forward the email to 50 friends in the next 50 seconds I will die a horrible death, but if I do I will get a great phone call within the hour and company X will magically track my email and send me money. Anything that says “I know, because this happened to my cousin’s friend’s brother” or “this could happen to you!” or “signed, random police officer” is probably fake. Please resist the temptation to forward it to everyone you know.

5. Assuming everyone thinks the same way you do. Being in marketing can really open your eyes to how self-centered and wrong a lot of people can be. Just because your grocery store stops selling your favorite itch cream does not mean that you can start your ranting with “But it was so popular! I mean, everybody liked it!” Just stop. If that were true, the store would still carry it. It’s like when a good restaurant in town goes out of business, and you think “Man, but they always seemed so busy and they have such good food,” but then you can’t recall the last time you even went there. This obnoxious habit also applies to planning trips or events. Just because you are interested in the history of the Hawaiian Purple Flapping Mongoose, does not mean everyone would enjoy spending three hours in a museum dedicated to it. Or how about when you think a movie is so great, but it only lasts three days in the theater before going to DVD. Come to terms with the fact that not everyone has your acute power of liking ridiculously uninteresting and shallow films starring Larry the Cable Guy.

6. Not knowing what in the world you stand for. I admire hippies for this. No matter what kind of craziness they happen to be pulling out of their butts today, at least they stand for something. That doesn’t mean you should run around shouting “Organic apples! Nude beaches! And free underwear for everyone!” You may end up looking like these morons. Just don’t be apathetic. C’mon. It has the word pathetic right there in it.

7. Being generally obnoxious. So you don’t think you meet any of the criteria above? That is the first sign of you being obnoxious. Everyone fits one of these categories some of the time. It’s part of being human. If you think you don’t, I think you need to do a little self-reflecting.

Note to Self: Self reflecting exercise - Step one: Remove head from ass.