You are a Scorpio. Scorpios are loyal, fierce, and naturally suspicious. Scorpios do not need more than one or two close friends to survive. Like your sister says, It’s not the Macy’s Day parade, for Christ’s sakes. You don’t need a crowd.
Every time you’ve read your own Tarot cards, the Sun card has shown up, along with lots of Cups.
Actual crickets at night through the window, and not one single car horn or engine.
Should life come crashing down around your ears, you can always stay with your sister.
Your daughter has expressed interest in karate lessons.
The Indian market you found in a strip mall actually carries loose spices and organic produce. If you go in Saturday just before the woman closes up, she’ll give you a piece of fresh-baked warm naan and wax your eyebrows in the back.
After several days of sleeping in the spare bedroom, a long overdue date night dinner and movie with you, and reassurance from a buddy at work that no one takes Marissa’s snide comments and stories seriously, your husband appears to believe you.
Part III — On Confrontations
So you’re not good at them? No problem! There’s no need to go fire and brimstone or be McGruff the Crime Dog. Try being direct, but seem concerned. Say, “Hey Patty, did you happen to say anything to Nancy about me and Doug Benedict?”
If she reacts defensively and the skin around her eyebrow ring turns bright red, you can assure her you don’t think it was her fault (even though it was) or malicious (even though it was.) Try, “I’m sure you didn’t mean anything by it, but somehow it got back to some people my husband works with and I just don’t want anyone thinking anything’s going on.” Try, “You know how a harmless comment can get blown out of proportion!”
Once it’s all sorted out, offer up a bit of information of your own to smooth things over with your new friend. An example, “The things I keep hearing about Teddy Benedict’s ex-girlfriend! Please don’t repeat this, but from what I hear she got a little too friendly with the tuba player in the marching band.”
Try not to smirk when she says, “Really.”
That night, when your husband smiles and tells you how chipper you seem, wrap your arms around him and ask how his bowling scores have been.
Other Wisdoms from Your Sister
When life hands you lemons, squeeze! A bit of chatter between friends is always fine, but be careful who you trust. Don’t say anything over email that you wouldn’t want your grandmother or your boss to read. Always look on the bright side, but never directly at the sun. Send your husband flowers just because.
Invite the neighbors over for dinner. Don’t wait for a special occasion to eat off the fine china. Never serve alcohol without food.
Your true friends will like you for who you are. Don’t worry about what other people say about you. For goodness sakes, sometimes keep your mouth shut, smile, and pour another glass of wine.
THE ETIQUETTE OF DISCRIMINATION
T.R.E.E. (Treating, R_____, Employees Equally)
Create a simple diagram that will help your staff understand the mission of the office. Try something like T.R.E.E., which can stand for Treating, Regardless, Employees Equally. The “R” is tricky, so a brainstorm may turn up something better (Regularly? Religiously? Rigorously?), but we like the tree metaphor because it is easy to draw one.
Make a big tree poster and draw all the branches pointing upward, like they are all succeeding. If you have extra time, you can add the names of your employees to all the branches, or even little photos of them. If you don’t have time, ask your secretary to do it and then stand there behind her, watching while she cuts them out all wrong.
When the poster is finished, hang it proudly in the break room above the microwave oven that no one ever cleans and that Rajesh stinks up every week with his damn curry rice.
V.O.I.D. (Voicing Our Inner Demons)
Let’s look in the mirror. Let’s see how your tie matches your shirt. The small green polka dots accentuate the gray pinstripes. Shave your sideburns. Pluck any excess hair from your nostrils—you have a meeting in the afternoon and it is not something you want to worry about when addressing everyone. Make sure that your Rolex watch is fastened securely. Remember to Think Positively. Remember the anonymous supervisor survey that your staff took three years ago, and the glowing reviews you got on personality.
Use music to lift your spirits in the car on the way to work. Sing along loudly—who cares who is looking? Healthy leaders don’t dwell on what others may think of them. They assume that no one ever talks badly about them. At the red light, when you look down again at that polka dot tie and remember that your wife gave it to you for Christmas last year, don’t let it ruin your Zen-like state. Don’t let thoughts of her, with her new boyfriend, destroy your day. Don’t carry the bad feeling into the office with you. Don’t let it prevent you from holding the door for the large woman struggling with her lunch bag right behind you, even if you want to let it slam in her fat, ugly face. Don’t judge her for the large whipped-cream-topped coffee she grasps in her pudgy hands.
It is just a tie.
K.I.S.S. (Keep It Subtle, Stupid!)
In leadership development workshops, the facilitators may have pounded into your head that you need to treat everyone equally. Disregard that—it’s nonsense. Is Rajesh, whose wife just delivered their third child, really going to have the same flexibility and concentration at work as your secretary, who drinks SlimFast for lunch and lives alone in an apartment five minutes from the office?
It’s not about managing equally, but about managing individually and subtly. Let the women sneak out at 4:30 p.m. on a Friday so they hit happy hour at the right time. Let Rajesh come in late so he can drop the kids off at day care and school. However Michael, Myyyy Callll, who pronounces every single syllable of every single word he speaks, needs a shorter string—if you don’t like the way he consistently jumps in during meetings and interrupts you with his Good Ideas, make sure he’s getting some extra projects here and there to keep him busy and quiet.
Remember you are The Boss. Therefore you can take longer lunches, even if you frown upon it when others do. You can snag one of the premium parking spaces reserved for visitors, especially if it’s raining. You can call off staff meetings on a whim.
Appendix B
Reasons to Use Sick Leave on Time Sheets
Acceptable Reasons Unacceptable Reasons
Your dog died.
Your fish died.
You wake up coughing blood.
You wake up coughing.
Doctor’s appointment.
Hair appointment.
Your wife left you for another man and you drank too much tequila and fell asleep in the basement with your head half inside the box of old pictures and your cell phone clutched in your hand with a trail of text messages you probably should not have ever sent her.
You are Michael, and you say you are sick.
Appendix C
HR Policy
Last updated June 1, 2011, the Human Resources policy states that it is:
Acceptable to: Unacceptable to:
Under Affirmative Action, hire the Asian-American man with two years of experience over the white male from New York with five years of experience and a similar love for college football (go Badgers!)
Take Jean off the important peanut butter account after she announced she is pregnant, even though she will be out of the office for most of the planning time.
Request to move your parking space away from the smokers’ break spot when your upholstery ends up stinking like an ashtray.
Give anyone extra points on their Annual Review for participating in the office softball league—and totally saving the quarterfinals with that amazing line drive down the third base line.
Compliment your staff on their work.
Say anything about Polacks when Stanley forgets once again to put a filter in the coffee machine when he makes a pot.
Breastfeed babies in the lobby.
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Drink three gin and tonics at the Halloween party and ask the intern if she is a naughty kitty who needs to be handcuffed.
Definitions and Facts
Discriminate: to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit.
OR:
Discriminate: to mark or perceive the distinguishing or peculiar features of
OR:
Discriminate: a: to make a distinction
Racism: the belief that inherently different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination.
The Facts:
You are not racist for disliking Michael.
You do not dislike Michael because he is black, but because he is smug and because he has been walking into your boss’s office often and closing the door.
Your wife cheated on her college boyfriend with you, and so you should’ve seen this one coming a mile away.
You do not dislike black people. There are many African Americans that seem like decent people—the guy who works at Subway who always tells you jokes, Donovan McNabb, your mother’s neighbor with the poodles.
Troy Davis clearly would’ve won a Heisman had he played for Alabama or Texas and not been on one of the worst teams in the country.
It is difficult to relate to men who cannot discuss sports at all. It just is.
It is not your fault that you grew up in an area where all the black people lived in the worst part of town and dealt drugs. In the Big City, where you work, there is Variety and Multiculturalism, but where you grew up the only decent folks you knew were as white as the snow that coats the parking lot in the dead of February and causes all your employees to call you at 6 a.m. to see if they can work from home.
S.L.E.E.P. (Steadily Leading Everyone Even with Pain)
Like Sean Payton and Drew Brees led the Saints to a Division Title the year after Hurricane Katrina swept in, you too must lead by example even in dark times. The best leaders are those who can swallow their personal conflicts.
Keep your head high. Rumors are poison—make sure that your staff knows this. If you walk in on a whispered conversation, ask the culprits directly what they were talking about. Say, “Ooh, I want to be in on the gossip,” and then smile, fold your hands over your belly and wait for them to make up something. Know if you do that often and enough, it will help to stop nasty conversations in the office.
Cut out fifteen minutes early. Breathe deeply, in and out, in the quiet cold of your car before starting the engine. Fold in perfect thirds the documents you got from HR, the guidelines they sent you via interoffice mail that outline your rights to free counseling sessions through your insurance. Go home. Make an appointment. Wait five minutes, then call and cancel it, deciding the therapist’s voice was too high, too feminine for a man, and you want someone who will understand you. Call the next male name on the list, his voice deep and old, comforting, reminding you a bit of your dad, and keep the appointment this time. Just hope his office is in a good section of town. Not to be racist or anything, but sometimes the South Side of town has those pockets of immigrants that just wander the streets, waiting to get in trouble.
THE ETIQUETTE OF VOYEURISM
Chapter 7 — Directions to Anatomy Lessons
Anatomy Lessons sits just a bit off Route 11. Look for the tiny sign at the edge of the parking lot. It’s an ugly cinder block building, no windows. At night you can see the neon lights reflecting off the door glass. If you get to Amish Markets, you’ve gone too far.
Pull in the lot past Mike’s turquoise Mazda with the dent on the left fender, which will usually be the only car parked out front. Everyone else pulls in the back. Park on the row away from the dumpster, since sometimes when leaving, men will fling their empty bottles at it and miss. Mike isn’t liable for any damage to cars in the parking lot.
Sit at the table two rows back from the stage, the one against the wall under the poster of the diagram of the human heart. They say Mike was in medical school for a while, but they never say why he didn’t finish. Use hand sanitizer; the tables are moist, sticky.
The stage is small, with one pole on each side. The show always starts with a broadcast of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” and at the end of the song everyone’s supposed to scream or the highway. Waitresses in nurse outfits will bring you drinks, heavy with ice, light on booze.
Appendix II: (Un)Official House Rules
Don’t choose favorites, even if you find Chelsea’s tendency to wear red more exciting.
Stay in the chair.
Do not be offended that they never make eye contact.
If the ladies say no, they mean no.
Always pay upfront.
Never call Mike “Doc,” unless you want a sandbag for a nose.
Never order a vodka tonic.
Do not videotape or photograph the dancers.
No licking or kissing, ever.
Don’t show photographs of your wife or kids.
Tip. Always tip.
Myth #22
Strippers are losers with no other job choices.
False! You will note many of the women at Anatomy Lessons are actually taking classes at the local college. Tamara has a PhD in medieval literature and applies for tenure track positions while her fake eyelashes set backstage. Bonnie and Luscious are in some teaching program. Chelsea’s hoping to get her associate’s degree in bookkeeping and data entry. On her off nights she sometimes sits at the end of the bar and studies, tucking her Hill State Community College pen behind her right ear and biting her bottom lip in concentration. Not that you really pay attention.
Myth #35
Only pervs go to strip clubs.
False! Just like in the wide, wide world, you’ve got your CEOs, your bus drivers, your attorneys, your real estate agents. You will note Mercedes, VWs, Dodges, and convertibles, motorcycles, minivans. Men with pressed suits and shiny shoes. Farmers in dirty jeans and flannels. Teenagers with fake IDs and their father’s aftershave. The Asian men come in groups, laughing, long black overcoats.
Of course you’ll still find the seedy types, and though the bouncer is there to watch out for them, it can never hurt for you to also take note. One type to be wary of: short, bald, thick in the middle, with a tight leather jacket that cracks when he bends his arms. Should he slide one of those arms around Chelsea when she’s on her break at the bar, clench your fist under the table and practice your breathing exercises.
Natural Hazards for the Outdoor Spectator
Dogs
Neighborhood watches
Mrs. Delmonico’s insomnia
Metal garbage cans
Mosquitos
Poison Ivy
Guidelines, Amended
Don’t choose favorites, even if you find Chelsea’s tendency to wear red more exciting. You can have a favorite. Everyone does. Even parents have a favorite child. The trick is to hide that fact from everyone. To not be like your father, whose eyes flickered in pity and shame across the dinner table, whose very soul screamed silently why can’t you be more like your brother.
Stay in the chair. You can stand outside the dressing rooms for five minutes. There’s a timer on your phone. Pace and hold the phone up to your ear like you needed a quieter space to have an important conversation.
Do not be offended that They never make eye contact, but you can still protect her.
On Escape — What to Do When They Know What You’re Doing
Always have two back-up stories for why you are in a given place. For example, you may be in the parking lot because you’re thinking about regi
stering for a night class at the community college. In a park, bring a book and some headphones. Turn the pages every now and then.
Even so, occasionally you may find yourself caught. In these cases, determining your accuser’s state of mind will help you determine which action to take:
Attempt to reason with the accuser
Apologize profusely
Deny, pointing to your book
Run
The rules of the game: Do not ever take photos.
The rules of the game: Always try to find a place that gives you cover but also multiple escape routes. As on nature trails, never leave anything behind that wasn’t there when you came.
The rules of the game: If it becomes absolutely necessary, volunteer to walk shelter dogs around the nature trails. Or actually register for a night class at the college. If it happens to occur on the same day and time of Chelsea’s bookkeeping class, well then isn’t that something? Being as authentic as possible makes for a better experience.
From Syllabus: ENG 101 — Intro to Film Studies Hill State Community College
This course provides an overview to the study of film. We will explore the concepts of film forms and styles and technical innovations, while hitting on the ways that cinema provides a context into broad social issues, structures and concerns.
Week 3: Ideology in Film
Critics for many years have discussed how making movies and watching movies are voyeuristic in nature. Commonly, we sit in a dark theater or room and watch the activities of people on a screen, peek into their lives as through a window, without them aware that they are being watched. Horror films have a very strong sense of voyeurism—often as viewers we are urged to take the point of view of the monster or villain.
Modern Manners For Your Inner Demons Page 4