BillLindau

laidbackophobia

Join the fight against LBP (laidbackphobia)
By Bill Lindau
Laidbackphobia, (n. also called LBP.): Abnormal fear or loathing of any person who is relaxed, free of worries, spontaneous or quirky, or of any object typifying such characteristics. Not to be confused with old fogeyitis or emotional outbursts in stressful situations. Specifically applies to reactions to objects, actions or attitudes that cause no harm to the individual afflicted with LBP.
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The psychiatric syndrome known as LBP (laidbackphobia) has afflicted Americans in all walks of life. It affects all races, all ethnic groups, all ages and socioeconomic levels. It has been known as a workplace affliction, often exhibited by high-strung personnel in middle-management position, but it also afflicts persons outside the workplace, such as a worrisome adult visiting an aging parent, or a parent with high expectations for a child (the so-called stage mom).
Those on the lower rungs of the proverbial corporate ladder may be more laid back if they like where they are and have no burning desire for advancement. It’s the overly ambitious employees who are constantly struggling for advancement that are more often the high-risk cases for LBP.
Here is a prime case of a LBP sufferer:
“Gavin” once printed out a mug shot of the actor Lisa Kudrow, who played neo-flower child Phoebe on the 1994-2004 hit TV sitcom “Friends”. He taped the photo to the little “easel” where he posts press releases. Even though Gavin had no contact with the public, and the CEO said there was no need to keep his desk overly spiffy, an assistant to Gavin’s department head went to his desk and tore off the photograph of the actor when he was not there. Gavin printed out another photo of Lisa Kudrow, and a day later, it disappeared, too. One of Gavin’s co-workers agreed with him that “Leslie,“ the assistant head, was the prime suspect because he was the only one in the office who was really that mean.
“If it were a Playboy centerfold, I could understand why Leslie would take it down,” Gavin said. “I wouldn’t have even thought of putting up something like that. All it was was a stinking mug shot, Clyde. Phoebe even had her shoulders covered. I mean, what was the POINT, man?”
Another symptom of LBP that Leslie reportedly had:
Leslie once expressed his dislike of several things: Two of the most popular sitcoms of the time, cats and the Chihuahua in the old Taco Bell commercials. While it may be normal to dislike one or two of these items, to dislike all of them could indicate the presence of LBP.
LBP sufferers have a very limited sense of humor, at best. They often dislike cats because of the reputation of domesticated felines as the most laid-back members of the animal kingdom, because these animals do their own thing, come when summoned only when they bloody well please and do their thing wherever and whenever they want.
Old people and high-level executives aren’t necessarily the worst sufferer (Leslie was 49 when he savaged poor Phoebe), and not everyone in management suffers from LBP. The grandparents I remember meeting were about the most laid-back people I ever knew; so were my parents. I have also had several editors who were pretty laid back, too. They had done their jobs too long to worry about common problems in the newspaper world, such as angry public figures and unreachable subjects. It’s not that they condoned laziness; they all took their deadlines seriously and there’d be the devil to pay if you didn’t get your stories to them on time or if you didn’t get your facts straight. But once they finished the task at hand and felt they could relax, they really knew how to kick back and have fun. These old masters/mistresses commonly shrug off setbacks that a recent journalism-school graduate might think is the end of his career.
There’s a difference between normally getting upset over poor job performance and LBP. An individual afflicted with LBP may give somebody a hard time when there’s no pressure at all to meet any deadlines; the LBP afflictee may begrudge the other person his or her ability to remain cool, calm and collected under pressure, or to take everything in life a lot easier. The LBP sufferer may justify his anger towards a harmlessly laid-back person by calling him “lazy”, “inconsistent”, “disorganized,” “childish”, “silly” or “weird”.
Here’s another incident involving an LBP sufferer:
While her car was undergoing major repairs, Casey rented a vehicle that was much newer than her own. It felt so good to tool about in such a peppy machine that she drove all the way to her older sister’s workplace, half an hour’s drive away in the next county.
Susie was on a break when Casey got there, but when Casey showed up and told Susie she had taken the afternoon off and felt like doing something, Susie put her hands on her hips, cocked her head and said, “What’d you come up here for?”
Susie knew Casey had not planned this move too far in advance. She just felt doing something on a lark. Susie was eight years older than Casey, graduating from college when Casey was in eighth grade, and it had taken Susie years to see Baby Sister as nothing much more than an irresponsible, disorganized kid.
“It was just something I felt like doing,“ Casey said. “It was a nice day and I had a car that was fun to drive and I had nothing else to do. I love my sister to death, but she’s pragmatic as you can get, and I’m the exact opposite. I’ve been acting on the spur of the moment a lot in my lifetime -- not on everything -- and even though I’m 40 years old I still do it. I don’t see anything wrong with that. But not old Susie. As far as she’s concerned, you have to have a reason for every single thing you do or you’re flirting with disaster. I’ve turned out all right.“
Casey seems to have a lot more friends than Susie.
“What do you want to do that for?”
That seems to be a common response by an LBP sufferer.
The subject of LBP reminds me of a conversation I got into at a nightspot. It around the Holiday Season of 1989, after the news of the collapse of the Soviet Union. I mentioned something I had heard about a group of people on the West Coast -- I think it was Seattle -- who put together a giant Christmas card to send to Russia. The card was 25 feet high.
One man at the bar gave the exact response I mentioned above: “What did they do that for?”
“Ain’t nothin’ over there but a buncha communists! That’s so stupid!” the same man said.
What do you know! Ebenezer Scrooge is alive and well in the Sandhills, and he’s back to his old self. He was just a little off on the subject of world affairs. I mean, that was the end of the Cold War. Plus, even under communism, the Russians really weren’t that big a threat to begin with.
End of America’s laid-back era?
LBP has reached epidemic proportions, starting in the 1950s. The counterculture of the 1960s first became aware of it in their parents and the baby-boomer hippies managed to keep it at bay for awhile, showing the world the joys of being laid back and doing your own thing. In the 1970s we listened to James Taylor, Jimmy Buffett, the Eagles and the soft rock of Carole King and Carly Simon.
But then Ronald Reagan became president, followed by the yuppies, the Bushies and the Red State-ers as America took a hard-right turn.
Laid back became a symbol of liberal lassitude, flower-childlike naiveté, especially in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. That was not the end of it when it came to America’s loss of its laid-backness. Dubya took office in 2000, companies started doing away with casual Fridays and many of the public schools began making their students wear uniforms (look in your own back yard, Montgomery County!). You can’t even wear blue jeans to school anymore, in some places. Isn’t that about the most un-American thing you ever heard?
Treatment for LBP
Although nobody has spelled out their condition before, LBP sufferers are about the most demonized people on earth, especially when those in management position or other positions of authority. But like the fictional Christmas heavies Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch, LBP sufferers are for the most part just unhappy people, taking out their stress and their frustrations out on others, wishing they could be laid-back and cool like the people they condemn.
Instead of condemning LBP sufferers the way people in the 19th century used to condemn alcoholics, we should treat their problem as a disease, not a social shortcoming. Remember: both Scrooge and the Grinch ended up changing their attitudes for the best.
I think it would be good to start a foundation, a support group for LBP sufferers. Organizations in the various cities and towns could hold bake sales and put on golf tournaments, 5-K foot races and charity auctions to benefit their causes, with the funds going to fight psychiatric research for LBP, or free clinics and seminars by health professionals for workplaces and families.
Here‘s an idea for a poster and a pamphlet cover: Phoebe Buffay spreading out her arms with a self-satisfied grin in a scene from “Friends”.
The best thing you can do for an LBP sufferer you know is to reach out to that person, show him/her he’s not really a bad person, encourage him to tell you what’s eating him. Maybe that’s all that person really needed, was a healthy number of friends and other sympathetic people.
Here are some other therapeutic things you can do with LPB sufferers:
* Rent movies with people overcoming sadness and an assortment of bad attitudes. Besides “A Christmas Carol” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “Chocolat” (2001, starring Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp and Judi Dench) and “The Secret Garden” (1992, starring Maggie Smith) are two other examples
* The old British sitcom “Butterflies”, starring Wendy Craig as a quirky woman with a good but boring husband (Geoffrey Palmer) is another good program for an LBP sufferer to watch. It may be possible to obtain this program on DVD; consult any PBS station for more information
* Let them listen to Beatles songs or their favorite comedian, or take them to a comedy club
* Get them to read “Be Here Now,” by Hollis Alpert into Baba Ram Dass, the works of Kahlil Gibran or the novels of Hermann Hesse
* Speak to their supervisors about giving them a break
* Take them on a walk through a park or an arboretum
* Write your senators and Congressmen and tell them to push for a mandatory six-week vacation period for employees, like the French have
* Let them play with your dog or cat
* Get them to ease up on the caffeine
* Talk them into doing something that wasn’t on their minds five minutes ago, such as taking a trip to the beach
* Have them remember the next silly idea that pops into their heads and tell it to a total stranger, such as a bank teller or a convenience store clerk; or
* Have them sing arias on the street when they hear some good news.
The 10th Commandment says, “Thou shalt not cover thy neighbor’s wife, or his house, or his oxen, or his ass, or anything else that is thy neighbor’s.” That commandment should have included “thy neighbor’s laid-back take on life.”
If you’re a religious person, you can pray for the severe cases of LBP.
Pray that an angel will whack them on their heads with a wand and holler, “Chill, People!”
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Contact reporter Bill Lindau at blindau52@yahoo.com or (910) 582-6610.

posted by Bill Lindau @ 11:51 PM