I don’t look like a freak…unless I try. I don’t walk around wearing BDSM buttons, no sign on my body says WASBO, HASBIAN, BI and PROUD, STRAIGHTISH, or MY GIRLFRIEND IS MY SLAVE or In My World, men are always boys. I do a reasonable job of passing in the world. A pretty darned good job, I think.
I’m not an asshole. I am direct, and I do mostly speak my mind, especially around politics and issues that require a critical analysis, and where someone is giving someone I care for a bad time, and most always if someone is beating up (figuratively or literally) on someone who cannot properly defend him or herself. I can get animated in my vexations, but I barely EVER direct them at an individual. I rail against ignorance and stupidity. I am assertive when dealing with people but I seldom cross the line into dickishness. At my core, like Hillel, who said about the Talmud, Do unto others, all else is commentary, I believe in the Golden Rule, and I work diligently to live by it.
Given that, I am perpetually amazed and typically amused when people fear my reactions to situations. I worked for an organization that was hiring a marketing director. As director of development, this hire would be my counterpart, my partner. I was deeply invested, as was the entire management team, in making the right hire.
The fourth interview we conducted was with a mature woman who wore a conservative navy business skirt suit and an American flag on her lapel. Picture the Pillsbury Dough Girl meets Betty Crocker. The interview was a group affair, executive director, director of admin, me, clinical director, another upper level clinical person, and our exec admin assistant. The clinicians and admin sat across the table from me. ED sat nearest the end the table where the interviewee sat. My pal, the director of admin, sat next to me. After some preliminary questions, I found myself screwing up my brow. I realized that the woman whom I’ll call Yvette didn’t seem to be answering any question directly.
All assembled noticed the same thing. My boss observed that she brought some material with her and asked about it, thinking that perhaps when she had the opportunity to speak about her work directly, perhaps she would be clearer. She passed around a couple of press clips with articles she did not write. Huh? I asked about the initiative that inspired the articles and again, her answer made no apparent connection with my question.
Finally, I said, Can you tell us about ANY initiative with which you’ve had success?
Oh yes! she said. This was the JC Pyramid. I was working with a group of doctors and I realized that they were very egotistical. So, I taught them about the Pyramid.
As she said The JC Pyramid, I thought I misunderstood her. She said that she taught the docs they are on the base of the pyramid – she made one with her hands, forefingers tented at the top, then thumbs connected, making a triangle. The docs were at the bottom, where they served the people. The people were in the middle. And JC was at the top. The JC Pyramid.
I was frowning the kind of frown you get when you’re mightily confused. I looked across the table at my coworkers as I interrupted Yvette. Their eyes showed deer in the headlights as I opened my mouth. I was further confused by their response. I just needed to understand what the hell this woman who would be my partner MEANT. My Jewish ears hadn’t even grocked the initials, JC, much less have a clue what she meant. I thought maybe she’d said JC, but my brain went to JAYCEE, as in the service club – the Junior Chambers of Commerce. What the hell are they doing on the top of a pyramid? How’d I manage to miss THIS bit of the heterosexual hierarchy?
I said, I need to stop you so you can go back and clarify for me – did you say JAYCEE? Like the service group?
Her first response was far and away the most eloquent. She turned purple from as far down her shirt as you could see with a modestly opened blouse. That flush enveloped her in the most luscious aubergine I’d ever seen on a human. She said, Well, it could be Allah or Buddah or…
At this point, ALL eyes in the room were on me. Each woman around the table, excepting Ms. DoughgirlCrocker looked at me as if to beseech my good behavior. WHAT THE HELL DID THEY THINK I INTENDED TO DO? I was purely trying to get the information we needed to make a good hire. And post JC Pyramid revelation, all I was trying to do was to keep from busting a gut.
My boss was first to recover from the JCP revelation and she cleared her throat and asked me, “Do you have any further questions?” I had already put my hand on my forehead and was looking steadfastly down at my yellow pad. I simply shook my head in the negative.
As she made nice with Ms. DGC, and walked her out of the room, I had to bite my lip. Hard.
As soon as she left and they were far enough down the hall that nobody would hear us, there was a thunderstorm of guffaws, cackles, and screams. By the time my boss returned, we were well into snotty nosed snorts and pants peeing. After my boss had disgorged her own cacophony of merriment, I got serious and said, ‘WHAT THE HELL DID YOU ALL THINK I WAS GOING TO SAY?”
Those whimp-asses got all embarrassed and not one of them would admit that of which they feared. What could they say? I fear your wild reaction because I believe that you are a freak?
No matter, I will always have the JC Pyramid to guide my way. I am inoculated forever more from petty ignorances such as theirs.
Do YOU have the JC Pyramid in your life?
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