Habituation: It was 20 degrees today. In comparison to the weekend, this felt like bikini weather. When you're used to arctic conditions, normal winter cold feels so pleasant. We get used to things.
-Habituation. I had a boss in college who would yell a lot. Mary would yell at me, at others, at staff. I never met a Calvinist, but she seemed like what I thought one would be...a joyless piece of flint rock. I was not used to being around a 'yeller.' After a time, I tuned her out. I needed the money, and it was a convenient location. I chalked it up to 'life experience.' Plus, I just came from high school football and wrestling, where coaches yell all the time. Also, she was exacting and precise at her job. That led to a trickle-down effect of raised expectations. We were expected to be as fastidious in our small tasks as Mary...minus the yelling. But then I noticed I would find my supervisors crying in their office or coming out of the bathroom, red-faced after being berated. Often, these transient souls would quit, but Mary and I kept working together until she hired the next supervisor and made their lives hell. I developed a weird affinity for Mary because she was an equal-opportunity yeller. She even yelled at one of her colleagues for working too hard and developing carpal tunnel syndrome. How irresponsible! The coworker laughed at her like 'you crazy old bitch!'
Habituation: After a while, Mary started paying me to clean up around her house or haul stuff to the dump over the weekends. The routine was always the same. The yelling would stop, and she would ask if I was doing anything over the weekend. I would say put on my 'poor orphan voice' and sigh...'no.' Mary would perk up. "Well, if you're not doing anything, maybe you can come to my house and help clean up." I wondered if this was a WASP version of 'race play' or "The Help." She would pick me up and drive me into the upper-crust area of Evanston. The work usually took about 1-2 hrs. The second I finished the job, all the hospitality and warmth would drain from her face. She would curtly hand me the money and say Let me drop you off " in a Cruella De Ville voice. We would ride back in complete silence as she looked at me with this thrill of pity, like I was beneath her. I would watch her face shift from feigned kindness to withering contempt to dismissiveness in one car ride. Mary would have made an amazing dominatrix if not for the fact that she had a WASP-ian disgust for sex. Then again, maybe dominatrices also have the same disgust, which is what makes them so good at their job.
One day, Mary was throwing out this very chic 1970s banana yellow lamp. I couldn't believe it, 'you're throwing this out?!?' This is a work of art. She was so stunned by my compliment that she let me have it. I took it back to my dorm and used it for the next 10 yrs. Hauled it around to cities and apartments. People would say 'that is such a cool lamp' and I would nod and imagine Mary somewhere in the world... yelling at a person in a wheelchair, 'you lost your legs?!? How irresponsible!" I lasted all four years at the same college job. In some ways, I appreciated the experience. I've written Mary into my stories: the comically uptight boss who both desired closeness but was disgusted by the thought of vulnerability. And then she would hand you a beautiful lamp out of the blue or write an overflowing letter of recommendation (she did that for me). Every time I visited this huge Evanstonian house built for raising a big, white, privileged American family, I would think about what she did at night. Scrabble? Worked at soup kitchen...drove around the neighborhood and did 'drive-by-yellings' at kids. And then return home to this huge suburban coffin.To be right and uptight! What a life!
I really got used to Mary. By the time I graduated, I may have even liked her...even as supervisors were running to the bathroom to cry. She was definitely more distinctive than a bland nice boss. She was the arctic winter blast that made all bosses after her feel like a comfortable 20-degree winter night.
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