monday punch-in-the-face blogging
if someone in my office says something that makes me recoil as if i'd just opened the door to a sauna filled with rancid meat and everybody laughs at it but me, can i forget that i ever heard the sound?
no. no, i can not. all i can do is retreat to my happy place, where dean and gene ween launch into a 12-inch-casio-and-ukelele rendition of "push th' little daisies" every time i enter a room and these guys serenade me in my secret garden every afternoon at cake time. there i can recoup my strength in preparation for the next time someone says something that makes me want to crawl under my desk and keen while i dig up tiny bits of industrial carpeting with my gnawed, nubby fingernails. because there is always, always, a next time.
co-worker 1: we don't get martin luther king day off? seriously? do you think they'll see through it if i say i need to take it off out of principle? [chucklechuckle]
co-worker 2: come to work in blackface; that'll fix 'em. [hearty chortles all around]
no. no, i can not. all i can do is retreat to my happy place, where dean and gene ween launch into a 12-inch-casio-and-ukelele rendition of "push th' little daisies" every time i enter a room and these guys serenade me in my secret garden every afternoon at cake time. there i can recoup my strength in preparation for the next time someone says something that makes me want to crawl under my desk and keen while i dig up tiny bits of industrial carpeting with my gnawed, nubby fingernails. because there is always, always, a next time.
Labels: mpitfb
posted by juniper pearl @ 9:53 AM
2 Comments:
At 12:34 AM,
Mikey B. said…
Why didn't you say anything to them? I know I would have in that situation.
At 10:29 AM,
juniper pearl said…
i didn't say i didn't, hon. but i've found that all that leads to is a lot of unsuccessful attempts on co-worker's parts to talk behind my back about how uptight i am--unsuccessful because cubicle walls are not soundproof, no matter how hissy you make your stage whisper--and the comments go right on being made. and i go right on being driven mad by them. my boss actually called me into his office this morning to say he had noticed that i tend to walk by people in the office as if they aren't even there and to ask if i was experiencing lingering resentment over the fact that there was no vegan food at the holiday luncheon. should i have told my boss that the only thing about the luncheon that offended me was the significant chunk of it he spent ridiculing the liberal zealotry of the residents of the people's republic of cambridge? he might never discuss politics around me again, but it wouldn't undo what had been done.
i do speak up about most things, mikey. but getting people to stop saying things like that in front of you doesn't make the opinion the statement represented disappear. and the motivation bothers me a lot more than the act.
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