I almost got away with one at work today, but I was busted and forced at gunpoint to sign up for a mandatory day-long diversity training for managers. I was thinking about telling my boss to just go ahead and shoot me, but then I remembered that I'd like to hear Michael Bolton sing live before I die, so I just went with it. (Note: That was a joke. I would rather eat barbed wire and wash it down with a nice tall glass of Drano than listen to even 5 minutes of that no-talent assclown.) (Second note: Michael Bolton, Kenny G, and Yanni will have a band together in Hell. Bank on it.)
I suppose the training may prove handy if my one direct report starts to exhibit multiple personality disorder, rendering obsolete my current strategy of dealing with her as a unique individual. But then again, that would presuppose that this particular diversity training would differentiate itself from every other one I've ever attended by imparting some actual useful information.
About 15 minutes after I signed up I was getting good and pissed off about it, and I composed the following e-mail to my boss:
Isn't my feeling that this is a gigantic waste of time a legitimate dimension of my personal diversity? Shouldn't the organization therefore prove its commitment to the tenets of diversity, respect my individual differences from institutional norms, and exempt me from attending?
Oh yeah. Attitudes toward the validity of the "diversity" paradigm are exempt from the doctrines thereof, and any deviation from the received truth concerning the value of said doctrines is to be considered counter-revolutionary. I almost forgot.
Then I canceled it without sending it because, hell, the poor bastard has enough problems as it is without being subjected to my sense of "humor" any more than necessary. And besides, he's pretty into all that touchy-feely crap and would probably get his feelings hurt. He's a nice guy, in a sensitive, ponytail-having kind of way. I tried talking to him once about Michael Bolton being one of Satan's minstrels, and I got the distinct impression that he liked Bolton.
Come to think of it, the damned training was probably his idea...
Posted by Mr Green at October 6, 2003 10:38 PM