Growing Up is Hard to Do
May 27^th, 2004
2:52 P. M.

I haven't blogged about work in a while. I don't want to go into details about the place (those closest to me know what it is), but what I can tell you is that most of the people I work with, and one of them I work for, are on the order of ten years younger than me.

I can remember being twenty or twenty-one. But the one thing I don't remember is the urge to pick on people who make it explicit that they wish to be left alone. Another thing I don't remember is passing off sophomoric pranks as a sense of humor.

One night last year, I found a nice little love note pinned under my car's windshield wiper. The secret admirer was fictitious, I knew. At twenty-nine, I think I could tell when someone really liked me. I saw the note and knew someone thought it was funny. I thought it was utterly ridiculous. Then I found out that the friends of the newly appointed twenty-year-old team leader were behind it. The team leader knew it was going to happen, but said and did nothing to prevent it.

Needless to say, I reported it, as did the person who told me who was behind it. The four conspirators each served a one day suspension. (No one will ever be able to convince me that the firing of the person who first reported them was nothing more than an act of retribution.)

Now, there is a new person working with us. This person looks, talks, and acts differently than the rest of us. I'm used to it. I'm the only one who works in my department, and on my shift, that was raised in this city. Everyone else is from points far to the southeast of the state. You know ... The whole banjo pickin', Confederate flag painted on a Dodge Charger, cousin datin' cliche to which the rest of the world seems to cling whenever the state of Kentucky is mentioned? Well, that's what these folks sound like to me. For the record, none of them plays banjo, nor dated cousins, nor do they own Chargers. But, at least one of them has a Confederate flag plate on the front of their SUV.

Well, this new person from day one I could tell was gullible and whiny. Helluva combination. The kind of person I would wish to allow them to do their job with minimal contact. However ... With what passes for a sense of humor in my department, everysingleday there are at least two people (sometimes three) who pick on this woman to the point where she whines worse than Will and Wendy from the old Saturday Night Live routines. Let me tell you ... Funny on TV (where you have the option of muting it or changing the channel), not so funny when it goes on day in/day out, five days a week.

And, who's involved with the picking you ask?

Picking being, oh let's see how this list adds up ... Flicking rubber bands, purposefully mispronouncing Nick Lachey's name (for some reason this one really offends her),throwing various items at her while her back is turned, denying anyone threw anything, ... I could go on, but I realized something; I'm tired of working in that sort of an atmosphere, and I no doubt would be tired of reading it already even if I weren't seeing it happen (like I said earlier) everysingleday.

Getting back to who's involved ... Would you believe? ... One of the ones implicated in the little love-note incident that they were suspended for, and! ... The now fiance of that person ... The team leader.

Yes, at any point, I expect the team leader to stand up and say, "Ok, everyone, I know this person is different from you ... I know that those of you who grew up with her have noticed a change in her, but that doesn't mean you get to constantly harass her."

That hasn't happened. If anything, the team leader chimes in to mimic the whinier moments this new woman has.

I feel as if I'm watching a bunch of Elementary school kids at lunch or something......

*** ** *** ** *** **Now, coming to you on a Thursday, it's the
Humpday Quote of the

Week!

You laugh at me because I am different, but I laugh at you because you are all the same.
- Unknown