Thursday, June 05, 2008
A Letter to the High and Mighty
"Seriously?"
"Yes, Seriously!"
Let's take a moment and go further back in time. I woke up later than usual this morning, and I had to go to the gym before going to work. As usual for situations like this, I would browse through my BlackBerry on Nokia to see what's on the docket for the day, and ensure that I have the flexibility to work out and shower. If not, I'd just shower and go straight to work. But this morning, I was all clear.
Throughout my workout, I constantly kept an eye out at my BlackBerry on Nokia, checking it routinely to ensure no new meetings pop up for the day. Everything was fine, so I went to the locker room and showered. As soon as I got out of the shower, as luck would have it, my cell phone and pager rang off the hook! Apparently, the vendor had set up a conference call, and I was a critical person for the call, and the vendor forgot to add me into the invitee list. Great...
As I stood in front of my locker buck naked, another fellow gym user came in from his workout. His locker happened to be next to mine. I paid him little attention, other than to get out of his way so as to provide more room for him, and started dialing into the conference call on my cellular phone's speakerphone.
As the call progressed, I continued to dry myself and put my clothes on. And finally, when I was doing my hair, the last thing of my getting ready for work, the aforementioned guy (henceforth to be called The High and Mighty) returned from the shower and started getting dressed next to me. Throughout the entire time, The High and Mighty kept on giving me the eye, and like a spoiled rotten girl throwing a temper tantrum, did things loudly while using his locker.
When The High and Mighty got dressed and prepared to leave, he slammed his locker as hard as he could, then finally opened his lips to say condescendingly, "Seriously? Speakerphone in a locker room?"
I knew it wasn't the best etiquette I've displayed, but considering the situation, I had no choice. So I responded, "Seriously, yeah. When you get paged for an emergency, I'm sorry. What else should I do?"
The High and Mighty shot back, all the while walking away from me, "You could've gone downstairs."
Just then, I had to unmute the call and respond to some of the discussions, so The High and Mighty left the locker room. But I was nearly done with my routine, so I hurriedly responded to the discussion, muted the call, and then put on my coat jacket. I tried to catch up with The High and Mighty, who was about 15 yards ahead of me, but he had his iPod on. He would look back at me once in a while, but not want to continue the discussion. And judging from the way he was dressed and the heavy backpack filled with leather bound books that he carried, I assumed that he was probably a law student at Northwestern University.
When he stepped out of the gym, The High and Mighty turned east. Alas, my work is westward. So in the interest of getting to work in a timely manner, I gave up on him. Hence this letter to The High and Mighty now.
Dear High and Mighty,
My many apologies for my social faux pas at the locker room. I want you to understand that I normally and typically would frown on people who carry on a phone conversation (or conference call) in the middle of a locker room as well. I knew it wasn't right, and my sincerest apologies.
But mothereffer, what bothered me was the fact that you saw me buck naked, and you heard and saw my phone and pager going off, to which I was frantically trying to respond to. Please don't flatter yourself into thinking that I like to show off my personal package instead of prioritizing putting on my underwear first.
When you returned from your shower, you saw me half naked, but you also clearly saw my badge that clearly stated that I work for a hospital. You of all people know that a majority of the patrons at this gym are employees of this hospital: doctors, nurses and technical staff like myself. It is not like their badges (and pagers) are always hidden from view when entering or leaving the gym. Northwestern University law students come in at a distant second when it comes to patron demographics. You knew that. It was in your gym discount orientation package. In fact, the entire make up of the patrons at our gym are affiliated with either the hospital or your school!
Here's the thing. You have every right to feel offended that I was on a conference call on speakerphone, but seriously, do you have to behave like a little pussy ass girl with a temper tantrum? I gave an honest response, asking what I should've done if I got paged into an emergency. Your response was ill thought out, and without any forethought. How can you expect me to just "go downstairs" when you clearly saw me get paged while I was buck naked and all wet? Your response was so f*cking dumb that I wonder how much your precious daddy had to donate to the school for you to get in.
I know the odds of getting paged in an emergency just as I have stepped out of the shower are pretty slim in the future. But I do know that the odds of this happening to someone in a professional walk of life are higher. So I hope that you will write a project plan on how to deal with this situation when you, The High and Mighty, have become a professional yourself (assuming you graduate some day) and encounter the very same dilemma as I had today. If you can make a better decision and act better than I have given the situation, please do share this with the world. Obviously, just "going downstairs" buck naked cannot be considered a good action plan, because it would involve having the risk of getting arrested for indecent public exposure.
So seriously, I am very interested in how The High and Mighty can act better in this situation.
Sincerely,
John.
PS: I am also sorry that your penis is smaller than mine.
PPS: I hope that when you get old and fat (should you develop some kind of a health problem) that you'll suffer a massive coronary heart attack while your doctor (or the ER doctor) is buck naked in his gym shower, and that he will take his sweet ass time to get dressed and "go downstairs" to respond to his/her nurse's emergency page regarding your health because he/she believed that proper etiquette trumps emergencies.
Labels: health, life, logic, stupidity
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