Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Faux Pas



 Well, I didn’t do a very good of “breathing in” a new colleague yesterday.

I was at the main campus of Savannah Tech, sitting at the adjunct’s desk. A Lead Community Team Instructor, the level of my boss,  sat down at the computer next to me. First, I called him the wrong name (it’s “Rick,” not “Dick”).  Why, oh why, don’t I let in the little voice in my head to say, ‘Julie, you’re not positive of this person’s name, and you don’t know him well, so instead of guessing out loud, simply say you’re unsure, could you please remind me again?’ Robin would laugh at this.

Of course, we were discussing the virus and the new state of things. Rick said that he planned to make a meatloaf but both Sam’s Club and Kroger’s were out of ground beef.  couldn’t find ground beef at Sam’s Club or Kroger. Of course, he said, this might be a good time to clean out cabinets; he could root around and find that can of chili in the back. And I said, “Oh, I just finished doing that before I got this job” (!).  Robin would be crying-laughing now. How awful! And one of my Douglas-mandated missions (Douglas is my boyfriend who often gives me assignments) in doing some work at Savannah Tech over pring break was to establish ties with my new colleagues.

It didn’t stop there. We then talked about hoarding at stores and I proclaimed, “I don’t have the money to hoard!”  Same issue going on here.  Why am I disclosing like this?  Why couldn’t I have just offered some bland response like, “I know, isn’t it awful?” Then he wouldn’t think that I’m some urchin that Savannah Tech recently hired.

He nodded after each of my weird responses. At least I remembered that he was a graduate of Broward College, the school that I taught for in Brazil last fall.

Goal for tomorrow:  Try to have normal interactions and not end up with negative-one new colleagues.

No comments:

Post a Comment