Out the Door

Today, I did something bad. I won't give too many specifics (big brother is watching!) but suffice to say it involved a shirking of professional responsibility coupled with a mad dash through the side door of an auditorium when no one was looking. Or at least when most people weren't looking. Not my finest moment.

It had already been a day replete with, well, meaningless bullshit. In the early morning, I sat through yet another hour-long unpaid staff meeting, the contents of which proved, as always, irrelevant to my professional life. I was cranky, on the edge of sick, and half-incapacitated with post-election exhaustion. Then I was asked to attend a meeting in the middle of bumfuck dealing with post-secondary placement. I work at the elementary level.

It took me about an hour and a half to snap, but snap I did. I am not proud. Part of having a job -part of being an adult- is learning to put up with meaningless bullshit: there is an ungodly amount of it no matter what your profession. Not everything will be relevant or useful; there will be hoop-jumping and box-checking and a whole lot of lying down and taking it

The thing that scares me is I didn't realize I was really going to do the bad thing until I was halfway down the stairs. I had, in fact, struggled mightily with my low tolerance for meaningless bullshit all through elementary school -and middle school, and high school, and graduate school. My attitude several times shot me in the foot: I estimate I lost at least two teacher recommendations and a program placement. Still, the sharp edges of that struggle had been blunted by time. I thought I'd licked it. I thought I was an adult.

Turns out I'm just truant.