those who are vapid

While realizing that this might be a gross overstatement, in the context of the work world, and in terms of a morale-productivity continuum, there are three buckets of people.

The first bucket includes the gung-ho types who are fundamentally into their career or whatever it is that they do to earn money. They care, they want to do well, and they are generally trustworthy, good, and hardworking people. They also happen to be “into” whatever project it is that they are working on at that moment in time- perhaps it is a great assignment or perhaps they just like their line of work that much.

The second bucket includes people who are fundamentally into their work and career path, similar to the first bucket, yet they aren’t into their current assignments. They have momentarily lost their motivation, for whatever reason, and their minds are elsewhere.

The third bucket, and the one that truly fascinates me, contains people that work really hard at creating the illusion that they are hardworking and career-inspired. Often they maintain this shenanigan for a lengthy period of time, perhaps for their whole working lives. They seem into it, they seem professional, and they seem to keep the ball rolling. But, there is something about them that seems artificial and off, and makes you want to run screaming rather than have to work with them. It took me a while to put my finger on it, but I have realized that these people are hard to be around because their sole existence relies upon them overcompensating for something that was never there to begin with.