Rabbit Writer’s Warren Sold
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author John Updike, considered by many to be the best American writer of his time, died in January at the age of 77. In late June, the Beverly home he shared with his wife, Martha Ruggles Updike, sold for $2.5 million.

Updike started contributing to The New Yorker in 1954, and was a constant presence in the magazine ever since. In his career, he published more than 20 novels, a dozen compilations of poetry, and countless articles of literary and art criticism. Take it from The Teller: that’s a heck of a lot of writing, and writing ain’t easy.

However his fame, and his bevy of awards, came from the Rabbit Angstrom series of novels, which were about a middle-class man mired in inescapable middle-class problems. "Rabbit is Rich" and "Rabbit at Rest" both won the Pulitzer Prize.

So what’s the best part about being an expert on the middle class? Escaping it, clearly.

Updike’s home that sold in June on Hale Street in Beverly was a colonial built in 1895, on 504,856 square feet of land. It had 14 rooms, eight bedrooms and six fireplaces. It was assessed at $2.3 million in fiscal 2009.

That’s certainly something for The Teller to aspire to. Not that our dingy basement apartment in Brighton isn’t … well, it’s a dingy basement apartment. Think we can get The Teller published in The New Yorker?

And who said real estate isn’t selling? All you have to do is find a home inhabited by a literary legend, and somebody out there will buy it.

Unacceptable Behavior, Accepted.
So apparently The Teller is the archetypical Smarty-Pants. And apparently that’s a problem.

At least according to Fred Pryor Seminars, it is. A brochure inviting The Teller’s bosses to attend a business seminar about "How to Deal with Unacceptable Employee Behavior," found its way into the mailbox. Fortunately (for us), The Teller intercepted it. That’s how we learned we’re The Smarty-Pants.

Here’s the description: "The Smarty-Pants challenges your management authority openly and forcefully, constantly questions management decisions, and creates a harmful undercurrent of ‘anti-management’ chatter."

Guilty, The Teller is an agitator. Down with the man (except on payday)! But hey, at least we’re funny while we’re undermining various management decisions and directives (at least, we think we are).

The Smarty-Pants is just one of 10 problematic characters Richard Pryor Seminars sees lurking around the office. The others? The Excuse Artist, The Short-Changer, The Intimidator, The Gossip, The Clod, The Downer, The Minimalist, The Soap Star and the Itch.

Of course, being the smarty-pants agitator that we are, The Teller has now assigned these titles to various members of the staff. It’s quite an amazing game, really, pointing out the bad and distasteful habits of all the other schlubs that surround The Teller’s cubicle. Yes, it’s divisive, and unhealthy for the work environment, but hey, it’s funny (again, to us)!

Well it was fun, until The Teller’s editor sauntered over, and saw us assigning archetypes to co-workers. Yanking the list from our hands, reading it over, and then turning his imperious gaze to us, he said "Which one am I?"

That would be The Intimidator, sir. Definition, according to Fred Pryor Seminars: "Everyone’s tip-toeing around this person, lest they incur wrath and anger! The Intimidator uses fear and bullying tactics to control co-workers and can single-handedly ruin an entire team [or joke, in this case.]"

That sounds about right to us. Except now the Intimidator editor has the brochure, and may attend the Sept. 15 seminar in Woburn. That will probably turn The Teller into The Downer.