Tough one

I was at work last Sunday killing time and chatting with my direct supervisor when I asked her how the hiring was going for other people working at the same place. When I left for my vacation they were still looking for new people to work at the same hours as I do, and I was pretty interested to find out who I’d end up with. My supervisor, a woman who is in her 30´s and seemed perfectly normal till then, explained that so far no people had been hired, though she did do one interview. But, she added, she had decided not to hire him since `well, you know, he had a sexual preference that was a little different than that of most men. Which is perfectly fine of course but I figured you wouldn’t be too comfortable working with him, and everybody should be comfortable going to work!´ after which she continued humming along to a Queen song on the radio.

Apart from the irony that she herself single-handedly destroyed all comfort I may have had in working at the place in those two sentences, and the fact that her gaydar is apparently not as fine-tuned as she thinks it is, the thing that hit me most about all of it was the way she said it. A little different. It reminded me of one of my friend Merel´s favourite stories; years ago during some school trip to the woods she got ill (flu, food poisoning, something like that) and spent a few days lying in bed with fever, nausea, and the urge to bitch at the other girls sharing a room with her. One morning she decided she wasn’t going to get up for breakfast and she stayed in bed, where one of the supervisors on the trip, a geography teacher with a wife and children, came to see how she was doing. He looked at her for a while and then asked the legendary question `Is it a…. you know…. a woman thingie?´.

Right after my supervisor transformed herself from a normal lady into an evil bitch from hell in my head the different me’s started a meeting on how to respond to this full frontal attack. Read-headed me was the first to think and shouted `HIT HER! IN HER FACE! WITH A BOOK! DO IT!´ while white foam was blowing out of his mouth. Against all normal rules he was joined by the idealist in me who, for the time being ignored his anti-violence beliefs, and joined in with a direct `I’d say resign right now, or at least strangle her!` and started unrolling his pride flags and started humming ´Imagine´.

The coward in me joined the realist on the other side of the table. ´Honestly´, the realist said, ´how do you think it will make any difference if we quit? Or kill her? This is a woman who apparently doesn’t like gay people, we don’t like bigots, it’s the exact same thing`. A valid point, to which the coward added a soft `Y-yeah, what he said` from his hiding place under the table. Realist came back with a good point `Guys, come on! Aren’t we the ones that always say `if you don’t say it’s wrong, than that says it’s right`? We have to stand by our principles!´ and started handing out ´We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it´ t-shirts to the other me´s.

By now my head was getting even more crowded than it usually is. The shopping addict in me ran into the room and shouted hysterically that we can’t quit because we need the money to buy things. The Seinfield fan in me wondered how my supervisor knew that the Anonymous Gay Guy was gay? ´I mean, seriously! Was he wearing a ´Kiss me I´m gay t-shirt? Did he tell her?´. The slut in me wondered out loud if we should ask for a phone number but after all the others looked at him in silent disgust for 2 minutes he left the meeting.

After that the stand-off was getting quite difficult. What to do? `KILL HER!´ read headed guy shouted. ´Lecture her!` idealist said. ´Yes! Do lecture her´ history teacher man said but he also was thrown out of the meeting by the others. ´Oh puhlease´ realist replied ´Do you honestly think it’s going to make a difference?´. ´Is she still out there?´ coward asked from beneath the table.

Eventually I decided to leave it for now. I usually find that people’s prejudices fade after one on one contact, but why always take the bullet? You can’t save or change everybody and at least now I have a very valid reason to despise my boss. Also I may quit after all in a few weeks and the nerd boy in me got his way in demanding I’d write a blog about it. But still, the coward in me was much too pleased with this solution.

But maybe, just maybe, I might listen to the bitch in me, the one who gets mad and gets even, and e-mail her loads of gay porn anonymously.