One imagines that I could take an assertive class if I wanted to. One also imagines that I might not pass it. Because I just hate confrontation.
It's absurd - because it causes me all kinds of personal anguish - but I generally expect people to act as decently as I would. I know.
I've learned to accept that drivers will cut me off; that people who imagine their time more valuable than everyone else's will cut in line; that in general the average person will default to rude for whatever reason. But the great disappointment is when you're part of some community - it might be a job, it might be a volunteer organization like, oh, let's say, a non-commercial radio station - & someone there is inexplicably rude & douche-y. It shouldn't happen - but of course the same people who are aggressive asswipes or thoughtless fuckwads in the rest of the world inhabit those places too.
I'm thinking about something that happened recently. I subbed a show while a person at the radio station was working on the new studio. I understood he had to be there - he was essential to the operation of the station, troubleshooting everything so we could broadcast without problems where we'll be for a couple of years plus.
This person boasted to me that he'd been working in radio for nearly three decades. & I had no problem with him wandering around, using a drill & other instruments, picking things up, putting them down, while I was playing music. But - listen - if you're ever in a deejay booth & the sound disappears & the deejay is about to go on the mic, you will stand very quietly, if you have any experience in a radio station, while the deejay talks. You know any noise you make might go out over the air.
If you have any experience in a radio station. Well, not this guy. With nearly three decades in radio. He proceeded to wander around the deejay booth, including several times walking behind me, occasionally bumping me, whenever I went on the air.
But did I say anything? Of course not! What good would it have done? What if I my tone of voice somehow offended him? I just suffered through those two hours while he puttered around & did his job, making my job a lot more difficult.
Maybe I should take one of those assertive classes after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment