Thin Mints!
Today, I felt a part of the working world. Moreover, today I felt a part of the American working world. I felt American. I felt I
belonged. I've been working on my own for so many years now, that I forgot what it was like to be a part of office culture, which was a huge part of the 1990's for me. You know, water cooler chat, brownies in the lounge, Super Bowl pools. The lot. Today, in the departmental office, there was a sign by the photocopier to buy Girl Scout cookies. I mean, what's more American then that? There's no equivalent in Britain where I've been living the better part of the past 5 years. No Thin Mints. No Tagalogs. And moreover, no sign up sheets for Troup 564 by the stapler. But it's more then some odd national symbolic cultural moment, it is the embodiment of office life. A way through which office-ness is enacted. The rituals of the workplace and their role in everyday life. Participatory biscuit consumption.
Sometimes, it only takes a box of cookies to make one feel at
home.
The more things change...
A professor I ran into gave me the less than subtle once over with his eyes. I am a lecturer. Not a professor. But a peer, even if a lesser and subordinate peer. I don't even know his name. But I got the visual body check - the kind only an older male can give a younger woman. The kind they don't even realise they do cos they are nice guys, but the kind that makes you feel icky none the less.
The worst part of it was that my first reaction wasn't to get pissed off. No, at 37, my first reaction was "shit, I'm wearing baggy trousers and a dumpy sweater cos I was running late. If only I had at least put lipstick on!"
What in the hell is going on there?!
I mean really. My second reaction, mind you, was to be disgusted. And to feel sad that some things have really not changed all that much. You know, check out my ass when my back is turned. Fine. But don't give me the up and down eyeball that is the reserve of catty women and fashion designers.
A friend of mine jokes that there are some things ultra-pc Antioch College couldn't have prepared him for. Then there are some things that not even Westwood One could prepare me for. I mean, corporate radio is supposed to be full of sleazeballs with hookers on their expense accounts. But academia should not have middle aged eyeballers. Sorry.
