My mayor interrupts my community's
citizens when they speak at our council meetings. He uses sarcasm. He calls them "liars". He's impertinent.
He should probably, according to the required decorum at city council meetings, "bar himself from further audience..."
I have to admit that I am sensitive to decorous behavior. I'm a retired flight attendant and, working flights,
I learned to paste on a grin no matter what. Over time, I found that if I was proactive and pleasant, I would minimize
my stress. I learned, for example, to check in with seats "B" and "C" if "A" wanted another
Coke. Many times I'd get the Coke for "A" and then "B" and "C" would say something like
"Hey, that looks good! I'd like one too! Shoot, bring me a bottle of rum while you're at it!"
During my 26 years of flying around the world, I'd get tired and irritated on occasion. But in general I had
a lot of "flight attendant fun". I anticipated going to work. People interest me and I am nice to them. I'm
respectful.
There are some who might say that I'm too positive; too naive, really. That, for example, a mayor
sarcastically interrupting residents speaking at council meetings, is to be expected; that on a scale of 1-10 on the decorum
spectrum--one being presidential candidates referencing the size of their (ahem) hands and ten being the pope addressing an
Easter Sunday gathering, a sarcastic mayor is closer to....the pope.
But perhaps I'm confused
on expected decorous behavior from community leaders or presidential candidates. Innuendo about the size of presidential penises
and interrupting mayors pale in comparison with my experience in a public school. I worked for a principal who used the expletive:
"F#@K!" a lot. I once heard him on a walkie-talkie held by my female assistant principal, yell at her and for anyone
listening (including nearby children), "GET THE F#@K OVER HERE!"
"F#@K!" he
yelled when I was assisting him with a data oriented task.
"Why the F#@K can't you
stay out of things!?"; he screamed in fear after he found out I'd helped an employee who didn't feel safe at our school.
Maybe if he'd said "please" I'd feel differently.
Hey! I'm getting better
at the sarcastic thing!
Never
during my flight attendant career did any supervisor use the word "f#@k" with me. Nor did I with them. I never
once stood in the aisle of any airplane and yelled "F#@K I am tired of this!" Never once, standing in the
galley following a meal service and ready for a break and THEN interrupted by a passenger needing just a little more coffee
or conversation, did I yell in exasperation: Why the F#@K can't you leave me alone?!"
"What
the F#@K is decorum, anyway?" I wish Donald Trump would keep his hands to himself; that my mayor would just LISTEN to
residents' concerns and that my former principal would learn not to say the "F" word.
Or
maybe I'm just too f#@kin' naive.
