Bread Instead

Is it weird to include a loaf of bread in the price one charges for a pair of tickets?

Turns out the second home game of the next series is on Sunday . . . which is also Indy. Which would even have worked out if they'd played the game at, say, 8:00; we could have made a mad dash back and probably made it in time. But nooooooo; game's at 2:00. Flip side, though, Bossman is more than happy to buy the tickets: I asked for face value plus a loaf of miche, which is one of the best breads from the best bakery in the city. Friend tried (albeit not very hard) to convince me to try to sell them for big bucks, but I suck at that kind of thing. I'd much rather get my money back, get an incredible loaf of bread, and enable someone who will be VERY happy to go to the game actually go to the game. (Bossman had season tickets for years and got them again this year for the first time in a very long while, but the bill for playoff tickets showed up when some other major expense showed up, plus he probably didn't figure they'd go this far. Or something.)

I probably could get a ton of money for the tickets, I should note. For example, someone is selling two tickets to each of the first two games, in a similar section, for a total of $1000--but face for these tickets is about $100 apiece, or what would be $400 for the four. I guess I have this notion that even ticket resales operate on the what-goes-around-comes-around principle. People have helped me out multiple times, and I can turn around and help out someone else--plus I get a fabulous loaf of bread out of it as my "surcharge."

I don't have all that much to offer up here, though. There was an article in last Sunday's NYT about female bullies that annoyed the shit out of me, but I've been neglecting to write about it because it was the same old tired patriarchal bullshit. The article started off saying that 60% of the bullying done in the workplace was done by men . . . and then proceeded to say no more about male bullies. And, here's a surprise: men bully both men and women, but women bully mostly women. How fucking dense can this person be? Bullies pick on the weaker/subordinate people. Who's more likely to be subordinate(d)? Oh, wait, that would be . . . women. The comments were a whole other festival of woman-bashing--it made it sound as though no man ever bullied anyone ever, it was just all those mean ol' women. Jesus christ on a cracker. Of COURSE some women are bullies--being female does not mean one cannot be an asshole. But did you see the part where the vast majority of the bullying is done by men? (And that's provided that the measure of bullying is accurate, which, good luck with that; d'ya think there's any chance than any woman who is strong will be regarded as a bully by some people, simply because she isn't being all subordinate and shit?)

Did anyone even consider that women get points with patriarchal men if said women bash other women? Has anyone noticed how the patriarchy encourages women to police other women's behavior, thus making it look, to the untrained eye, as though it couldn't possibly be a sexist thing? Did anyone point out that many (patriarchal) structures reward bullies and assholes, so anyone who wants to succeed (or has to survive) within those structures has to engage in or at least tolerate that behavior? And who among us has the wherewithal to go up against a bully, especially if there's any kind of piling on? I am of an age, and education level, and income level, and I have a boss such that the consequences of calling out bullying are way less likely to be problematic for me, but most people don't have that privilege. (We also don't have any bullies, quite, where I am now, that I know of.)

The more interesting question for me is why people don't join together to fight a bully. Haven't you noticed the people who see the bullying going on but don't say anything, just sit around hoping the bully doesn't focus on them? Of course, someone above the bully in the hierarchy has to give at least tacit approval to the resistance, and someone has to be willing to point out that the emperor/empress is, in fact, unclothed, and that's difficult to do, and sometimes it's difficult to see it. And some situations cannot be changed: I have been extremely lucky in terms of my immediate supervisors. Seriously; despite the occasional irritations that are part of all human relationships, I have had very good bosses, with the occasional extraordinary one thrown in for good measure; that makes a huge difference, too.

The other thing I've discovered is that a strong personality can alter behavior for the good. I think most people would agree that I have a strong personality (though it took me decades--really--to figure that out, for an assortment of reasons), and one of the things that enables me to do is to set a tone in some settings. For example, I try very hard to compliment and acknowledge people publicly. Not in a blowing-smoke or sucking-up kind of way (because no one ever trusts that, nor should anyone trust that), but just acknowledging people's good works. It encourages others to do it, it feels good when someone does it, and it doesn't cost a damned thing. I know some people think everything is an all-or-nothing game--i.e., in order for you to do well, someone else has to do badly--but I really fight against that mindset, because I hate it. And that kind of positive influence can snowball--I may be able to start it, but others have to carry on with it.

I do wonder what would have happened if the one very difficult person hadn't left about a year ago. She and I would not have been a happy team, by any stretch of the imagination, and I am certain she would have done her best to sabotage me. Given the information imbalance that she would have had and would have fought to maintain, she would have succeeded, too, which means I would have left (or my boss would have had to choose). I'm just glad I don't have to deal with it. It's not that there are no frustration with my job now, and it's not as though there aren't always politics when two or more humans are around each other, it's that there's a whole other level of disfunction through which we don't have to fight.

Anyway, the stress continues: big site visit at the end of June, and at least one proposal between now and then, which will require a bunch of coordination with others, plus I need to get some data together, plus one of my coworkers will be gone for three weeks (don't ask), plus some hockey, and Indy, and Milwaukee . . . so, yeah. Might be a little busy around here.