A good Thanksgiving, a bad TSA agent, and a revisit to a long-ago interview

I had a great Thanksgiving holiday.  My holiday spanned two states plus a brief crossing into Canada. During that time, among other fun experiences, I saw a solo concert by my favorite dancing rock pianist (not quite as "dancing" due to recent knee surgery, but I discovered he's got a brother who plays bass and who is now my favorite dancing bassist); I visited my college campus for the first time since graduating and finally got to go to THE bar hangout spot that I'd heard about for years, which is pretty much a rite of passage for Indiana University students (even my parents hung out there, since they both worked at the university), but which I was never old enough to go to during my time in college (and I even got my hand stamped after I was carded! Woohoo! So finally I can say I'm a true Indiana University alum); I learned from explaining the "I wasn't old enough to go to bars until the summer I graduated when no one was left on campus, and I never had a fake ID, so I never went to the main bar" bit to my fiancé's family at Thanksgiving breakfast that my fiancé's mom did have a fake ID (this is on par with learning that Mrs. Cleaver from Leave It to Beaver had a fake ID), which my fiancé now refuses to acknowledge; I got to celebrate my mom's birthday early so I could be home for it; and I found a cat sitter for Christmas for my little crazy energy fluff ball of a cat so we don't have to put him in a kennel again (this incredible cat will be getting his own blog post in the not-too-distant future).

But I also had a horrible experience at the airport being groped by a TSA employee. I always opt out and get the pat-down, so I'm very familiar with the procedure and what constitutes an appropriate pat-down.  This was not that.  My fiancé saw it, and while it was happening, as his jaw dropped, I said over the TSA agent's head to him, half-jokingly, "I think I'm being molested," and he replied, "Hashtag metoo -- by a female TSA employee."  As she went along, she continued to focus on one particular area very inappropriately and repeatedly, and several times my fiancé and I communicated over her head about the inappropriateness of what she was doing.  She ignored us, and when she finished, she said, "You guys have a good holiday" -- to which my fiancé replied, "Yeah, looks like you just got yours early."  To make things worse, she had begun the whole thing by saying, "Oo, fun for me" when told by another agent that she'd be doing my pat-down.  My fiancé and I made fun of her in front of her male coworkers after she'd finished and walked off, but I was in so much shock, I didn't think to get her name so I could file a complaint (which I know would go nowhere) until I'd already left and was telling the story to my mom over the phone.  What the agent did was bad enough that if I did have her name, I would consider filing a police report, especially since my fiancé backed up that what he saw was way past any line of what was appropriate and normal and okay for her to do.

I wish I could go back and get her name and file a harassment charge. I'm mad that I wasn't thinking clearly enough to do what I should have done. And that reminded me of a past instance that I wish I had handled differently....

A couple years ago, I posted a "from the archives" post about my first professional job interview. It was with the high-profile former head of a major theatre organization who was striking out on his own with a (no longer in existence) theater/film production company.  He's a Tony Award-winning producer who since then has also served as president of a major theatre company (a position from which he was asked to resign after it was revealed female employees were uncomfortable with his "sweeties" and "honeys" and that he had a relationship with an employee he promoted twice).

With all the dominoes falling in the entertainment industry amid sexual harrassment accusations and revelations, my curious "interview" with him has popped into my thoughts several times recently -- particularly the ice cream part of it, which I blew off at the time as weird and pushy on his part, but upon reflection as a wiser and more experienced adult, comes across to me as something far more skin-crawlingly disturbing and sinister.  He wanted to start the interview (after I got in his black SUV on the corner of two streets just off campus) by buying me ice cream. I repeatedly said I didn't want ice cream, but he insisted on it, saying he wanted ice cream and it wouldn't be very nice of me not to get ice cream with him, and assuring me he was paying for it. He gave me some line about how he had to get along with his executive assistant, and that meant he should be able to eat ice cream with his assistant. He asked me my favorite flavor, informing me he WAS going to buy me ice cream. I vaguely remember there being some weird business about the flavor I said was my favorite (vanilla -- specifically because I didn't want to have a conversation about it) -- he wanted to talk about why it was my favorite, and I was already thinking this wasn't going well.  I caved and let him buy me the stupid ice cream, which I really didn't want -- because I DID want the job and wasn't sure how to handle it.

Upon reading Lupita Nyong'o's account of her experiences with Harvey Weinstein, it struck me that Weinstein's insistence on buying her alcohol when she repeatedly said she didn't want it served the same purpose as this producer's insistence on buying me ice cream -- It was an assertion of power, a test to see how willing I was to give in to that power, and a grooming mechanism.  Though I reluctantly did give in to the ice cream demand, it made me shift "out" for the rest of the bizarre encounter, which could hardly be called a job interview by any professional standards.  (And when I e-mailed him a professional thank you after the interview, eight of his fifteen words in response were "after all we have had ice cream together."  I wasn't sure then what it meant, and I'm still not sure, but it gave me the creeps and it cemented my decision not to contact him when I got to New York as he'd suggested I do.)

Since that interview, every time I think of it, I wish current-me could inhabit 21-year-old-me and handle it differently.  On the phone when he told me where to meet him, I'd say, "Actually, I would prefer to meet at a coffee shop or one of the many areas of the student union suited for job interviews."  If he said he wanted to buy me ice cream, I would say, "I don't want any, but thank you for the offer," and wouldn't budge on the subject.  And I certainly wouldn't get in his car, and at some point in there I would have said, "I'm sorry, I was expecting a professional job interview, and that's clearly not what you have in mind, so let's not waste each other's time any more."

So I'm posting that annotated journal entry again now.  Because no one should find themselves having this experience as a "job interview."  Because no young woman should meet a stranger for an interview by hopping into his car on a street corner, no matter now many Tonys he's won or how powerful he is.  Because no one should be forced to eat ice cream, or drink alcohol, or do anything else completely unrelated to the job that they don't want to do in an interview.

And never go to a cemetery on a job interview.  That one should just be a given.

But seriously, adult me would never put up with a single part of this encounter, and neither should any 20 or 21 year old.  And don't put up with a TSA agent groping you, either.

"The Annotated Story of My First-Ever Job Interview": http://www.behindtheseen.me/2015/04/the-annotated-story-of-my-first-ever.html

Storytime, Jessica style

11:30 PM, as I settle down on the couch next to my fiancé (who is watching a TV show I'm not, which tends to mean that I interrupt him a lot to tell stories about my day that I'm sure he's going to find fascinating) with a bedtime bowl of cereal, which on this particular night is a bowl of bran flakes to which I've added a scoop of powdered chocolate peanut butter and then smothered in vanilla almond milk:

Me, after tasting a spoonful of my concoction:  Hey, can I tell you a story?

My fiancé sighs and pauses the TV and turns to me, eyebrows raised.

Me: So when I was little, I had this craft kit that let me make paper flowers.  You'd pick a stem, and a petal pattern, and which color paper you want, and how many layers of paper you want, and which color center plastic pollen thing you want to hold it together, and different centers and colors had different scents, so you could choose from jasmine and tulip and rose and probably some others, and make endless combinations of differently scented, differently colored, differently shaped flowers. 

My fiancé: This is a good story so far.  Lots of conflict.

Me: So anyway, my bran cereal with the powdered peanut butter tastes like the tulip scent in that kit smelled.

My fiancé stares at me a couple beats and then turns back to the TV and presses play.

Me: Was that not a good story?

My fiancé: .....Well, it was a story only you would tell.

E as in Apple

At work, trying to get the spelling of someone's name to fill out a form (and talking in person to someone other than the woman whose name I was trying to get. And just to be clear, I was talking to an American-born English speaker with no speech impediments.)

Me: What's her name?
Woman: Mrcnfrmnra.
Me:  Sorry, what?
Woman: Mrcnfrmnra.
Me: Sorry, can you can spell that?
Woman: M-E, no I think, M-C.
Me [after writing M-C and waiting 5 seconds for her to go on]: Yes?  What comes after M-C?
Woman: N-E.
[I write N-E, then look up expectantly at her.  She smiles blankly back at me.]
Me:  What's next?
Woman: N-E.
Me: Another N-E?
Woman: N-E.
Me:  Right, I have one N-E -- is there another N-E?
Woman: N-E.
Me: Okay, so another N-E. [I write another N-E, bringing the total to MCNENE, which doesn't look like any last name I've seen before, but whatever]
Woman, shaking her head: No. N-E.
Me: I already have N-E.
Woman: N-E.
Me: There's a THIRD N-E? Mcnenene?
Woman E. E. As in Apple.
Me: E as in Apple?
Woman: Yes, N, E, as in apple.
Me:  A?
Woman: No, E.
Me  [erasing what I've written and replacing it with M-C-N-A, and then showing it to her]: Is this right?

[she nods]

Me: Great, so what's next?

Woman: N-E.
Me: Can you just say the whole name for me again?
Woman: Mrcnfrmnra.
Me, sighing.  Okay, so there's another N-E as in apple?
Woman: Yes. No. Wait.  M. M-E.

[I write M-E and she looks over my shoulder]

Woman: No, E as in apple.  They're all Es as in Apple.
Me: Gotcha. All Es as in apple. So M-C-N-A-M-A.....  Oh, is her name McNamara?
Woman: Yes.
Me:..... Great.

You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone

I've found a rift in the space-time continuum, and it's in my local smoothie shop.

I should back up. 

On Saturday, June 17th, my fiancé and I went for a walk and stopped in at a fruit and smoothie shop.  The date is important.  I remember it was Saturday, June 17th, because it was the day before Father's Day, and the shop was busy handling orders for fruit basket deliveries for the following day.  In fact, the shop was so busy that they were a bit overwhelmed. The manager came out from the back with a new hire whom she was training, and she walked the woman through the steps of making our smoothies.  The new hire had never made a smoothie before, wasn't a quick learner, and was having trouble figuring out how to follow the directions for the smoothies that are all printed on index cards in a flip book behind the counter.  The manager talked her through which measuring scoop and spoon were which, which cup was a small vs. a kiddie size vs. a medium, how to use the blender, etc. 

We got our smoothies eventually, they were delicious, and time moved on -- four and a half months of time, if you're counting, which I am here.

Then on Friday this week, I posted the following on Facebook:

So when your whole team at work is waiting on the street for one person who's late, and you call to ask for an ETA and they tell you they're just one block away, and then five minutes later you all SEE the person finally one block away, my question is this: Does that person think you're all blind, or did they wake up thinking, "THIS is the day I will warp the space-time continuum"?

My cousin jokingly commented on my post with "If you don't start your day with believing you can warp the space time continuum you certainly won't succeed at it. And, really, are you telling me that everyone doesn't start each day with that thought?"

And another friend added, "There are eddies on the time-space continuum. Possibly a few blocks inserted themselves as the person went along. I noticed that happened often as I was going home--I'd think 'I'm a block away from home' and then, another block would appear out of nowhere and make me a block further away..."

I smiled at their joking comments and went along with my day.

But then today... today I found it.

On my way back from the library, I stopped in at the smoothie shop for the first time in four and a half months.  The woman who was a new hire and being trained last time I was there was behind the counter again.  I ordered a smoothie from the menu over the counter.  She said, "Oh, I don't know how to make that, actually. Let me go get help," and returned with the manager from last time, who immediately smiled upon seeing me and said, "Oh, you were just here the other day!"

I hadn't been there in four and a half months, but I smiled and said, "Well... a while ago," and she replied, "Yeah, yeah I remember you."

And then she proceeded to train the woman, WHO DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO MAKE A SMOOTHIE AND WAS A NEW HIRE BEING TRAINED, on how to make a smoothie. The manager talked her through which measuring scoop and spoon were which, which cup was a small vs. a kiddie size vs. a medium, and how to use the blender..... again.

But it was the same woman from four and a half months ago.  She wasn't a new hire.  But she was.  She had been making smoothies for four and a half months now.  But she hadn't.  I had last been there on June 17th.  But the manager said I'd been there "just the other day."

As I walked away, munching on my smoothie (I say munching because the woman being trained never did learn how to use the blender properly, so there were lots of ice chips and almond chunks in my smoothie), I tried to think of an explanation, but I could think of none.  I'm flummoxed.  What has time been like in this shop?  What has the "new" employee been doing every day at work for the last four and a half months, since it clearly hasn't been making smoothies?  Who has come into the shop since June 17th?  Why does time seem to be condensed to only a few days for them when it's been months for me?

Then this evening, I got an alert on my computer that I had a new Google Hangouts message from my brother.  I clicked on the green alert and his new message popped up.  His "new" message is dated from May 5th of this year (a date he confirmed when I asked him about it).  And it's about how he just met someone named Jessica who looks like me, who did dancing, acting, and film production, who lives in Queens (he met this woman in Michigan), and whose mother's maiden name is Pollack.

I have no idea what any of this means.  All I could come away with was this:  I hope when I go back to the smoothie shop in five months, that employee will have learned how to use the blender.

Early lessons in manipulation

This afternoon after work as I headed for the stairs down to the subway, I realized that there was a major traffic jam.  People were coming up the stairs, but no one was going down.  As I tried to get a view of what the problem was, I saw a young mother who could clearly use a little assistance but was making a valiant effort at getting her two little children home by herself without going crazy.  Though she let out a few big sighs with the pep-talking subtext of "I can do this, I can do this, I can do this," she kept a smile on her face and a pleasant tone with her younger child, her daughter, who was causing the massive traffic jam for everyone trying to get on the L train at the busy station.  The little girl had apparently decided she was done walking.  Much like a dog being taken for a walk who just decides to sit on a corner, the little girl sat down on the stairs and started crying.  Her face turned red, tears streamed, and she wailed that she didn't want to walk anymore.  Her mom was already grappling with the little girl's stroller to get it down the steps while simultaneously trying to guide the girl's brother down the steps, too, so she was out of hands to carry the little girl.  Looking up the stairs and seeing the stagnated line of increasingly frustrated pedestrians backing up, the mom heaved a big sigh and said, "Okay, you're done walking, it's okay," and magically maneuvered pushing/ pulling/ dragging the stroller, keeping track of the brother, and carrying the little girl.  By the time the girl was heaved up into the mother's arms and had wrapped her little legs as far as they would go around the mom's back, everyone in the line in front of me had squished around the trio, leaving me face to face with the little girl.  And at that instant, as she hugged her arms around her mom's neck, she locked eyes with me, instantly stopped crying, gave me a big grin, and announced to me gleefully in a proud voice full of joy, "I got TWO rides today! I got TWO!" and then giggled.

If that mom thinks her hands are full now, she should just wait until that girl's a teen.  Something tells me that she'll be a handful then, too....