Work would be great if it weren't for the goddamn colleagues

[oloriel]

Or rather, one particular colleague; the rest of the mob I can handle; they may be vicious, arrogant and/or macho, but with them, it's mostly a show, and above all, they're not stupid.

This particular specimen, though...

Of course, it has to be my immediate pseudo-boss thing. "pseudo-boss" because he isn't actually boss of anything; he's just the "department technician" the students are assigned to.
And he's just... gah.

We had a discussion today in the office - that is, it was mainly between him and C., another student. Somehow, they'd been talking about funny movies.

C.: I didn't like Traumschiff Surprise all that much. Schuh des Manitu was much better.
M. (the pseudo-boss): No!
C.: You liked Surprise better?
M.: No! I hated them both! These gay people!
C.: ... what, about how they were depicted?
M.: No! Gay people!
C.: So what was wrong with them?
M.: They were gay!
C.: ... so?
M.: I belong to the people who say that's not normal. Honestly, I want to punch them all.
C.: .... what do you mean by normal?
M.: It's not natural!
Me: But hey, there's gay penguins and guinea-pigs* and dolphins and all - it happens in nature, so it can hardly be unnatural.
C.: Exactly. Nature's way of keeping population in check.
M.: But those don't reproduce.
C.: ........ gay humans don't reproduce either.
M.: But I can't stand them! And they always try to convert you and hit on you!
What I THINK: To quote Michael Mittermeyer: Don't worry, M., gay men have TASTE.
What I SAY: *nothing*
C.: ... well, what do you do when a woman hits on you and you're not interested?
What I THINK: ... seriously, that guy isn't "not interested" when a woman hits on him.
What I SAY: *nothing*
M.: Tell her that she's got no chance.
C.: So you do the same with guys. Works for me.

[And C. is quite a pretty guy; I can imagine he will get hit on rather more often than M.. For real.]

Now - I wasn't actually surprised by M.'s stance on the topic; I hadn't expected anything else. If anything surprised me at all, it was C.'s reaction; C., like all men in the company, pretends to be the strong, uncaring heroic macho type, so I wasn't expecting him to be reasonable as far as a topic like this was concerned. As far as M. was concerned, it was just so typical. And the way his "arguments" were all so ridiculous, and he didn't even notice that they were, and that he was backing up even while he was being stubborn... just drives me up the wall. ARGH!

Or a discussion we had yesterday:

G. (another colleague): ... wait, don't you write Systematik with an H?²
M.: Of course you do!
G.: Christiane, you're good with languages. T or TH?
Me: T, of course. It's derived from System, which is written without an H, so Systematik is written without H, too.
M.: But Thematik ["subject matter"] is written with an H!
Me: ... yes, but Thematik's got nothing to do with it. Systematik comes from System.
M.: But Thematik is written with an H!
Me: Yes, M. Systematik, however, has nothing to do with Thematik. Honestly. *on my way out, because otherwise I'll go snappish, which I can't afford*
M.: I'll check the dictionary.
Which, of course, told him that it is not "Systhematik".

I know it's kind of petty to ride around on that sort of thing, but it happens All. The. Time. And he thinks he's so smart and brilliant and oh so superior to us poor little students because he, after all, has a proper job that is mostly done by the students assigned to him and is made. Fact is, he's a college dropout because he got offered the job of department technician while he was doing a student job at the company or something - at any rate, he dropped out of university to work there. Now I know that dropping out doesn't make you a worse person, or intellectually inferior to people who are yet trudging on. But it does mean that he isn't growing into anything any more. That's what Jörg always points out when I bitch about M.: He's reached his finish line for life, whereas I've already caught up with him - and am only just picking up speed.
If only M. weren't so damn smug about being all he can ever be. If that makes any sense. I mean, work-wise, there's exactly two things he can do better than I can: a)work in Excel (which I daresay I could learn if I had to) and b) stuff you need an administrative account on the company network for. That's all.
And then you're supposed to not be "intellectually arrogant", as my dear old German teacher used to put it.
*le sigh*

So I work out of the office as much as I can - luckily, there are many chances to do that - and stick to the other co-workers who may not be nicer but are at least smarter as much as possible, and only roll my eyes at him when I'm out of sight, and just don't argue with him because there's no point.

But ARGH.

*I did indeed have two pairs of gay guinea-pigs: Klopfer and Asterix, who were brothers on top of being gay; and Sam and Frodo. (To the hobbit-slash haters: Yes, I had named them before I knew that they were gay. To the hobbit-slash fanciers: But they were gay anyway. BTW, Sam topped. :p)

²A problem that can only arise, of course, in a language without dental fricatives.

Comments

[rahja.livejournal.com]

Oh nicht aufregen. Gibt immer doofe leute. *knuddels*

[http://users.livejournal.com/macalla_/]

Ich widme dir hiermit mein letztes Gedicht.

[ladyelleth.livejournal.com]

Augh, I feel your pain. *hugs tight* <3
Do you want to borrow H. and take him to work with you? He'd probably hit on C. rather than M., but he might at least teach M. a thing or two about homophobia. ;)

[dawn_felagund]

Eek. To be blunt, what an ass! Personally, I'm of the mindset that people like that treat students the way that they do because (as Jörg said), they have hit the wall and you are still going. I remember when I was still a trainer in the restaurant, a coworker of mine who was waiting tables that day came back nearly in tears.

"What is wrong?" I asked.

"I'm waiting on the Hecht's ladies," she said, "and they are treating me like crap because they work in a nice department store and make more than I do."

(Our restaurant was in a mall, and the "Hecht's ladies" were notorious pains as well as pompous idiots who worked down the hall from us.)

"But Jamie," I said, "you are working your way through school. You could get a job paying more than theirs if you wanted to probably, but you are getting your education, so you have to work here."

But it was amazing the number of people who would look down on us--students--because "we still waited tables in a restaurant." Argh.

[eruannath.livejournal.com]

-__x What an asshole.

M.: No! I hated them both! These gay people!
C.: ... what, about how they were depicted?
M.: No! Gay people!


Very enlightening...

[vashachu.livejournal.com]

BTW, Sam topped.

You so win for best journal entry read by me today. *hands you a cookie*

And M needs a good smiting.

[applegnat.livejournal.com]

GAY GUINEA PIGS.

*dies of the cute, omg, so much*