[HPforGrownups] Digest Number 4550

[LadySawall at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 98665

In a message dated 05/02/2004 8:36:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com writes:
> I get the impression that you think Snape could treat Harry better 
> if he just tried harder. But what if Snape, like Neville, is trying
> as hard as he can already?
> 
> Pippin

I am sorry again, I don't know if you intended this post to be 
humorous, but I am laughing again. If what Snape does right now is 
the best he can do, then he should definitely try harder. :o)
Gonna stick my neck out here, and say that I don't find Pippin's question in 
the least humorous.

Personal experience, leading back to topic further on in the post:

I've been stuck in a job that I loathed (retail) dealing with people that I 
all too often couldn't stand.  Now I don't claim to be a particularly nice 
person, but I'm not a misanthoprist either; I get along pretty well with people in 
general, when I'm not obliged to wait on them hand and foot regardless of how 
they behave toward me.  And, if for no other reason than because I needed a 
steady income, I had to make my best effort to be nice even to the absolute 
idiots I dealt with on a regular basis.

There were times when, even knowing that my job depended on it and that it 
was The Right Thing To Do, it was very, very difficult.  On particularly bad 
days, I'd get violently pissed off at people I had never seen before, just 
because they chose the wrong moment to walk into the store.  I was reprimanded more 
than once because I got snappish with a customer (didn't matter whether or not 
I had a good reason.)  Needless to say, the reprimands were wholly justified, 
and I always felt bad afterward for having let my temper get the better of 
me, and resolved to do better next time; but it usually didn't help when the 
next time actually rolled around.

Bottom line, some people just aren't cut out for certain lines of work.  No 
amount of effort on the part of the square peg will allow it to fit into that 
round hole.

So I have a lot of sympathy for Snape, even though I don't approve of many of 
the things he says and does.  Sort of the same way I have sympathy for Al 
Bundy of "Married: With Children" in his miserable little shoe-store position.  
Having to go in day after day to a job that one despises can sour even a more 
or less benign personality after a while; and someone who's already burdened 
with a mean streak and an inferiority complex, IMO, doesn't stand a chance.  Put 
him in a research position--or for that matter, *any* environment where he 
could work with consistently competent adults--and I expect he'd do better.  But 
I really think that if he had any choice in the matter, Snape would not be 
where he is.

Come to think of it, I'm kinda surprised that after having to slog through 
fifteen years of explosions, melted cauldrons, student theft, hospital trips, 
wasted ingredients, and wave after wave of disrespectful inattentive dunderheads 
(come on, you know Harry's class isn't *that* unique!), he hasn't killed 
anybody yet...

Jo Ann

...who does feel badly for poor Neville, but suspects that he's enough to 
give any Potions instructor a migraine.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]