"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."
"If you tell the truth, then you don't have to remember anything."
"Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it."
—Mark Twain
That gal/pal Charlene sure knows how to party. He/she’s all about socializing at work. In fact, when this here omniscient narrator did a little role-playing himself as the acting school principal (which only lasted two hours) the melodrama began. I handed Charlene a memorandum requesting specific information on fifteen newly enrolled students; insignificant items (to my gal/pal anyway): reading, language, and mathematics grade levels, initial enrollment dates, and previous GED scores.
You would’ve thought I asked for Charlene’s first-born. He/she tossed the memo aside, eliciting this response from yours truly: “Have that information in my mailbox by the end of your shift.”
Reasonable? I thought so, considering he/she had 6 ½ more hours to work.
Charlene left his/her secretary desk and stormed into the school principal’s office. I stood in the doorway.
“Is there something you need in here?” I asked. He/she picked up the phone and started punching numbers. “Who’re you calling, Charlene?” I added.
He/she slammed the receiver back into its cradle. “We’ll see what the deputy warden has to say about this!”
“No problem … end of your shift,” I reminded him/her.
Oh Charlene, why-why-why did you leave me feeling so empty inside? Why didn’t you give me a chance?
When Charlene returned, he/she dumped me. “You’re no longer my immediate supervisor, the deputy warden is.”
I’ve suffered rejection all my life. I held my emotions intact. “Good for you Charlene. End of my shift.”
In the lunchroom the deputy warden approached. He explained to me that Charlene had called our boss vacationing in Florida and she in turn absolved my favorite gal/pal from answering to me. I, in turn, gave the deputy warden a copy of the memorandum. He looked puzzled.
“I know …” I said.
It took two full days, more game playing, and a classroom visit by the deputy warden to get the necessary documents for me to do my teaching job. The deputy warden hand delivered it himself. “Is that all?” he asked.
“Well,” I said, “I have another dozen new students enrolled in my class, but I think I’ll wait until the school principal returns.”
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Back to reality: My prayers go out to the corrections officer whose wife died this week from brain cancer. May she rest in peace.
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