Feets, Don't Fail Me Now! Part Deux

Last night started badly. We had to watch a half-hour long video featuring some chirpy blonde woman telling us how to reconnect our scattered lives, or some such claptrap. I had a visceral negative reaction as she chattered on about how we don't spend enough time with our children, yadda yadda yadda. The video was obviously intended to help us balance our roles as working women, loving wives and soccer moms. I, however, was 0-f0r-3 on those categories. The blonde had a studio audience which appeared to be almost all women. I saw one man who probably was either someone's hen-pecked husband or else gay. It was pretty obvious who the target demographic for the video was, and it wasn't those of us who can pee standing up. If there had been commercials in the video, they would have been for diapers, children's cold remedies and feminine hygiene products. It wasn't a guy thing.

Finally, after about five minutes, I could stand the woman's inanity no longer. "Gaaaaaaahhhh!!" I exclaimed, causing startled glances from my co-workers. "I can't stand her!" I was sitting at the back of the room by the door. The supervisor had left the room, and the door was open. I slowly scooted my chair to the doorway, and then backed it out of the room. I pushed the chair into the neighboring conference room where I had borrowed it from, and then made good my escape. "Feets, don't fail me now!" I would have made a clean getaway except that the supervisor came back in as I was getting ready to walk back out onto the workroom floor. "Sneaking out?" he asked.

"Yup," I replied. "I'm sneaking out." And I left, feeling very empowered and assertive, just the way the video wanted me to.

It took me a little while, but I finally figured out what the video had reminded me of: My ex-wife used to love to watch "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" in the mornings. I loathed that show, and would have to go into another room and watch ESPN Sports Center or Jerry Springer or something to get Rosie's inanity out of my head. I wouldn't break out in hives when I'd hear the show's bouncy intro music, but it was pretty close. So I guess we can chalk up my visceral reaction to the banal blonde as a sort of post-Rosie traumatic stress syndrome. That's as good an explanation as any, so I'm sticking to it.

The bad news is that the video was supposedly part of a multi-part series. The good news is that there were no repercussions from me bolting from the room, so I won't have any qualms about doing it again. My stance is simple: I don't mind training that helps me in my job, but for chrissakes don't try and feed me that touchy-feely politically correct crap, especially when it has nothing to do with anything in my life.