I have terrible manners and in the past few years I feel like I have somehow gotten worse. You know, like always eating with my hands instead of using a utensil. Hell even when I use a utensil I’m holding the fork in my right hand instead of the left and I burp belligerently as if I was sitting on my couch alone and chugged a can of soda. It’s gotten to be appalling seeing me function in public.

As you can tell, I’ve never actually been taught how to be a “professional”. I mean don’t get me wrong my parents have always taught me the big three; Always hold the door for someone, treat others how you want to be treated, and that wet leaves are more slippery than ice.

Their lessons are hard wired deep within my DNA. It’s about the only thing I can say I remember. Their words are embedded in my brain. Everything after that that I’ve learnt in my life is gone. My mind is like the episode of Spongebob when he forgets everything about fine dining when I’m out in public. All I know is what I know.

While working on construction sites, it kind of means being more unprofessional than anything. I’ve never leant how to be professional. Whenever I shake someone’s hand I give them the dead fish and let them squeeze my limp hand and shake it up and down at their leisure. It’s at the point where I’ve been saying “What’s up Yo?” to greet people at work. And I mean not only to the people I work with on the job site but even my boss and my boss’s boss. A manner which I’ve recently found out is not the correct way to talk in a professional setting.

It’s been going on way too long and I don’t think there’s any turning back for me. I mean I have no clue how to be professional. I’ve gone away from giving people the dead fish and handshakes altogether, I’ve just accepted the fact that I suck at them. Now I just go right in for a fist bump and they always go for a handshake, then when they go for a bump I switch to a handshake, and then wackily switch my handshake to a bump and smash the top and bottom of their fist with mine and then cap things off with giving everyone I meet a hug to greet them. As if it’s our secret handshake and they know what the hell I’m doing.

I don’t know how to say hi to someone, I don’t know how to give a hand shake, so I’ve given up on trying to be professional. Before I know it I may find myself calling my boss “Sandbagger” and he’ll be calling back to me, “What’s up baby dick?” I wouldn’t say it’s the best approach or in any way that it’s a good approach, but it’s been the quickest way for me to break the ice with people and actually get to know them. It’s the reason why I’m allowed to eat lunch with all the Hispanics on our job site. Either I’m cool enough to be there or weird enough to be deemed cool enough to eat with. Hell, I’ll take it.