Right on, Mr. Snivels

This time of year—with pollen a flyin’ and people a snifflin’ at my office—always takes me back to high school English with Mr. S. English had always been my favorite subject, one I later majored in at college. But the year I had Mr. S. almost made me hate the subject, and was my first experience with true panic-inducing fear.

Mr. S. seemed ancient to my young teenage self (he was probably only in his forties). A shock of white feathery hair swept across his head. He was short and stout, his diamond pattern sweaters always taut over his rotund belly. His face looked porcine, with big full cheeks that hung down into jowls, a turned up nose, and a splotchy redness that suggested alcoholism or high blood pressure. His Spartan desk was clear of any clutter, and only boasted a box of Kleenex.

With other “old” teachers, we students had the run of the show—swinging from rafters, talking back, throwing paper. But Mr. S. somehow commanded a militant discipline; each of us sat in our desk, hands folded, looking straight ahead. Nobody dare flinch.

There was one thing, however, that really got Mr. S.’s panties in a bunch—and it was something none of us did on purpose or could control. Sniffling.

The first time we learned of his pet peeve was a few days into the beginning of school. Some poor slouch sniffled and Mr. S., who was writing on the blackboard, suddenly stopped, shoulders hunched in annoyance, before slowly turning around, cheeks flaring up, hands shaking. With undisguised disgust he literally growled: “USE. A. TISSUE.” The boy who had committed the crime timidly approached the desk, took a tissue and returned to his seat. Wiping some snot away, he left the balled up tissue on the corner of his desk and continued to sniffle.

Mr. S. put down the chalk and turned around. By this time his face had taken on the shade of a beet, and looked like a balloon that had been filled with too much helium. “BLOW. YOUR. NOSE,” he said dangerously before turning back to the blackboard. But what teenager likes to blow their nose in class? It’s a recipe for disaster, and can only end with visible boogers hanging out or some other source of fodder for bullies or teasing.

Tension filled the air. The only sound in the room was Mr. S.’s clickety-clack chalk working its way across the board. I was afraid to swallow. But snot boy couldn’t help himself…his faucet was a drippin’. He sniffled—a big one—and all hell broke loose.

Mr. Smith threw down his chalk, jumped over his desk with the finesse of a football player and grabbed the boy by his collar. “GET OUT!” he shouted, escorting the boy to the hallway. “GET OUTTTTT.”

We all looked around, laughing nervously while inwardly assessing our own nasal passages and whether or not they had the potential to leak. Throughout the year, especially during winter and spring, a record number of students were thrown out of Mr. S.’s class. Nerd, dirtbag, punk or prep—nobody who had the sniffles was safe.

I remember being anxious to go to class. I remember using the rest room beforehand to blow my nose. I remember HATING Mr. S. with all of my being and thinking how utterly unfair he was. I remember thinking: what’s the big fartin deal about a sniffle?

Now in my mid-thirties, I can tell you what the big fartin deal about a sniffle is. IT’S ANNOYING. As I sit at my desk amid the sounds of coworkers' throat clearing, coughing up of phlegm, dry hacking coughs, over-the-top sneezing, and sniffles galore, I can honestly say that I totally sympathize with Mr. S. and totally "get" him.

If you’re still out there Mr. S., if you’re still alive and torturing students with poor immune systems or allergies, or even if you are in an old age home ready to go postal on your snivelling fellow residents, all I have to say to you is this: I hear you, man! Right on!

The Rise and Fall of Captain America

When I was a student teacher at college, before I realized I couldn’t teach because I don’t like kids, we learned the tactic of studying by association. The idea was to associate a word or idea with the thing you were trying to remember. But the mind works like this naturally. One word can make your brain leap to another place and time. This happened to me this weekend while watching an all-day "Beauty and the Geek" marathon on TV (yes, somehow I still had brain waves while watching it). For those of you who don’t watch mind-numbing reality shows, the concept in a nutshell is a house full of socially awkward but mega-smart geeks paired with ten “beauties” who share three brain cells between them. They have to interact with each other, the idea being that the beauties get smarter and the geeks get…well, less geeky. Each episode, the geeks/beauties take a pop quiz (for the women, something “intellectual” and for the men, style or fashion). The question for one of the women was—hold your laughter Alex Trebek—what are the three colors in the comic book character Captain America’s uniform?

At the name Captain America, mind association kicked in and I had an instant flashback to nine years ago. I was working in Spain for a family-owned publishing company that hired American ex-pats who would later morph into angry, miserable, bitter “lifers,” wasting away their talents and intelligence for 800 bucks a month. The place had an amazing capacity to turn even the most upbeat person into a paranoid, negative psycho. One by one, I’d see a "New Guy" come into the cushy office full of hope at a real job in a foreign country, only to be broken by the backwards office politics, the miserable, jealous lifers, and the “Dr.,” the 70 year-old company patriarch who ruled his kingdom with an iron fist. The worst of the lifers was a woman who took it upon herself to do a CIA-like background check on every new employee (she’d check the history on their computer, refuse to give them the code to the office door and could be heard saying to anyone who’d listen that the newbie might steal the company’s secrets). We called her “Paranoid Wendy”* or PeeWee for short.

Then came Mark Hardy.* From the American Midwest, Mark quickly became known around the office as Captain America or Mole. He was christened Captain A after I’d had the misfortune of witnessing one of his soapbox speeches about how George Bush had every right to invade Iraq, and how it was NOT for the oil, but for the noblest cause of all—to free the Iraqi women! Mole, his second nickname, came about partly because of the way he continuously scratched himself due to an unfortunate dermatological condition, and partly because of his ability to infiltrate a group in an attempt to “network.” He first shook things up when he started to go through lunch buddies with a vengeance, changing his group of friends several times, leaving a string of casualties in his wake as he burrowed his way to the top. He quickly became the Dr.'s henchman. He could often be heard complaining to his friend of the week about how negative everyone else was.

“I don’t get what’s wrong with everyone here…you gotta take the bull by its horns,” he’d say, ever the King of Positive Clichés. Or his catch phrase: “I always say if life gives you shit, eat shit sandwiches.”

But as much as his popularity and positivity threatened the evil kingdom, PeeWee knew better. She told me one day, whispering in the hallway, the pink creeping across her angry face as she twitched in rage, “His star may be rising. But it will fall.”

And fall it did. While I never learned of the specific torture he must have gone through, within six months Captain A could be seen slouching down the hall, all traces of his usual scurry erased. His scratching became more intense, and red splotches emerged across his face and neck. Instead of smiling, a pained grimace spread across his wholesome face (too many shit sandwiches for lunch?). Rather than changing lunch buddies again, he started to dine alone. He stopped shaving. We lifers gave each other knowing looks. He’d been broken. After a few weeks of this, we never saw or heard from him again.

Flash forward nine years. The question on TV rattles me…I instantly picture Mark Hardy and wonder where he is…did he ever bounce back to his cheerful deluded self? Did he get a job where he could actually use his talents? Did he stop scratching? Dismissing Captain A, I concentrate on the question. What THREE colors (they actually have to give a hint) are in Captain America’s costume? Jesus, if only I’d studied more in school. The “beauty” pauses and wrinkles up her face. Using that one brain cell. The seconds pass. I’m sweating. But Thank G she finally answers: Red…White…and Blue. And she's right!

*Name changed to protect the person I'm exploiting to get a chuckle on my blog.

Bit Fest

Workplace violence or bullying is a hot topic but why doesn’t anyone talk about being bit-slapped? The first time I experienced it several years ago, I thought it was just Sandy*, a coworker with a personality disorder that forced her to relinquish a string of boring and inane “tid-bits” to anyone with a pulse, regardless of their indifference. But now I see that every office has one (or multiple) “bitters**”—people who feel a divine calling to relate the trivial, random, excruciatingly boring (or excessively intimate) details of their lives to your horror and discomfort (while not caring about or listening to anything you have to say in return).

I’ve tried lowering my head and typing to send off signals that I am working, to no avail. Like a well-trained tracker, my ears perk up when I hear the tell-tale footsteps of a bitter in hot pursuit of a bittee, making me stoop to jumping up to use the bathroom or faking a phone call to avoid the avalanche. (As one bitter told me when he blatantly interrupted my hectic work day to tell me about his love life: “I know you’re busy but just thought you’d want the update.”)

Does this happen to anyone else? Or am I just too nice? Open? Welcoming? Is there a sign on my forehead reading: Bitters Come Forth and Bit Me?

I’ve written a list in order to classify the different types of tid-bits, which I hope will help me first understand, and then successfully avoid, the bitters in my life.

*Name changed to protect the bitter
**Not to be confused with cool, fun workmates who you enjoy having a “two-sided” conversation with.

Types of Tid-bits

1. The Quota Bit: Usually thrown out at random, regardless of the topic of conversation at hand, or in a frenzy at the end of lunch in order to ensure the daily tid-bit quota is fulfilled (see number 10).
2. G/B-Bit: Any tid-bit of or relating to a person’s girlfriend or boyfriend. Particularly irritating when said significant other has no name, but referred to as “my boyfriend said this, my girlfriend thinks that…”
3. Recycled Bit: Any tid-bit that has been heard before, recycled and used again for lack of new tid-bits. Sometimes slightly changed to disguise the reusage.
4. Floater Bit: A random and off topic tid-bit that is thrown out in a desperate attempt to interrupt normal flowing conversation and draw attention to the bitter. Usually results in bewildered silence from the bittees.
5. Rescue Bit: Not given by the bitter, but offered by another coworker to try to distract attention from the embarrassing Floater Bit.
6. Boomerang Bit: A tid-bit that just keeps coming back, even when the conversation has moved away from the original tid-bit.
7. Serial Bit: Any tid-bit that, like a soap opera, comes in daily installments.
8. Work Bits: tid-bits that relate to tales of woe in the workplace, heroic martyrdom in the face of impossible demands and huge workloads.
9. Bargain Bit: Any tid-bit relating to money, especially the saving of, or fear of spending too much of.
10. 4th of July Bits: The grand finale! Tid-bits that are given at a machine-gun-like pace after a weekend trip or similar event that generates a backlog of bits.
11. Bait Bit: designed to make the bittee take the bait and respond: "Oh really, why is that then?"
12. Bottom of the Barrel Bit: Makes you seriously wonder WHY the bitter felt that this was need to know information. Real life example: “My deodorant flaked all over me this morning.”