In late 2019
(before Covid19) I was hired as an administrative clerk with the 2020 US
Census Bureau in Burlington, Vermont. At first, there were only 6-8 of
us. It was nice meeting new people. It was helpful to learn local
lore. Then Gloria started working there.
Gloria was pleasant to talk to, in her 70s,
and seemed to especially enjoy detailing all of her various mental and
physical afflictions and ailments. Although she needed wrist-crutches to
walk, she always had a smile on her face and a kind word to share. One
thing Gloria did not talk about was that she was excessively obese and a
consequence of that was—she did not bathe adequately. Her solution was
to heavily douse the parts of herself she could reach in mind-numbingly strong
lotion-deodorizer and hobble to work. Picture the gluttony guy, from the
movie Se7en, combined with the sloth guy's smell (don't forget the thousands of
little cardboard pine air fresheners).
One of my Asperger's traits happens to be
an extreme sensitivity to odor. It's rarely an issue anymore. Sure
my friends have to lose their habit of wearing cologne or perfume if they want
to sit with me indoors. But except for the occasional requirement to
move my airplane or theater seat when someone like Gloria is nearby—I rarely
have any anger issue. That's my emotional response: if a terribly strong
smell arrives, which I can't escape from, anger is locked and loaded.
Important note: "angry smells" do not make me angry. I need a
trigger. [Metaphor: a epileptic may be prone to seizures, but needs a
flashing light.]
I moved my desk so I
could sit as distant from Gloria as possible. We talked from a
distance. I breathed thru my mouth when anger smells made me start to
feel "snarky". This lasted a month until a new internal "team" was
scheduled to be formed. Six of us, including Gloria and I, were supposed
to train together and then sit together and work on the same project.
Immediately, I sat down in private with the
new team's manager, explained where my individual Asperger's fit into the
broader spectrum, and told him I needed to be de-selected from his new
team. I learned he was nose-blind, had never wondered why no one sat
next to Gloria, and that he was set in his ways (a polite way to
describe an outdated old coot who thought reading aloud was teaching;
kicking the can down the road was managing; and considered
outdated to be a pejorative.) Nose-blind decided I was either
exaggerating or lying and his fix was to keep a few desks between Gloria and
me.
The supervisor
selected to oversee Nose-blind's new team was my trigger. His name was
Fuck. Nose-blind was also clueless as fuck to the irritating,
cringe-awful, personality of Fuck. In our first days of training (as I
listened for hours to Fuck and Nose-blind take turns reading from the manual,
trapped in the training room with glorious sloth-gluttony) it became clear
that Nose-blind had not mentioned to Fuck that he should avoid flashing his
strobe light in my eyes when I'm forced to sit near Gloria.
This is how I
made it almost a full week: I never sat with the team and I constantly
reminded Fuck to stop hovering/irritating/talking/lying/manipulating and
bragging about himself (although he never stopped, he did focus it less in my
direction).
Then . . . as a combination of
feces-urine-sweat mixed with Pinesol-flavored powdered roses and
yeast-infection, linked up with the humidity in my sinus cavity . . . Fuck
decided it was time to kneel on the floor so we could be eye-to-eye and
petulanty insist that I do it the way he told me to do it! Not because
it's logical or correct or in the manual (it's not) but because . . .
I'm your supervisor. And I exploded.
I brought the entire
room of twenty phone-calls and conversations to a halt with my "why are you being such a fucking asshole" question. I asked him several times, in a gradually increasing volume,
until Nose-blind escorted me into the conference room. (Fuck never
stopped chattering into the manual about how I was wrong and he was right.)
Nose-blind was
soon accompanied by the arm (Assistant Regional Manager). The arm was in her
mid-20's, on some form of mood-speed, said like, like, a few too many times,
like in every sentence, and framed her questions in a way that made one thing
very clear: Nose-blind never gave her a head's up about the precarious
conjunction of Gloria, Veach's Asperger's, and Fuck's fuckatude. So as I caught the arm
up to speed, I answered her questions-clumsily-phrased-as-statements and learned she
thought Fuck was fantastic at his job and that Nose-blind's idea to keep "kicking the can down the road"
was the correct course of action. Every time I used the phrase,
Nose-blind got more agitated. (Consequently, I found ways to repeat it.) You say you've no intention of kicking the can down the road, but we are
sitting in the same place we sat weeks ago when I explained my Asperger's the
first time. This is exactly what kicking the can down the road looks
like.) I apologized for my angry outburst. They
told me to take lunch, cool off, and return to work. Instead, I left and
went home.
From home, I
compiled and e-mailed a memorandum detailing everything in professional, legal
verbiage. I used many phrases like:
or words to that effect, and, on or about the time/date, and,
requested accommodation for my disability. The following day I
called Nose-blind about the memo and asked about being reassigned. He
acted indignant, put-out and whined, "Veach, it's only been one day!"
The next day:
"Veach it's only been two days!" So I told him, "Weeks ago, when I
requested you not re-assign me,
that was a
clear and reasonable request for an accommodation for my disability. When I did that, I fully complied with EEO guidelines. Now, I
expect you to un-reassign me in accordance with those same Equal Employment
Opportunity Anti-Discrimination Against the Disabled Guidelines." I also
told him that if I didn't hear from him before the weekend, I would make a
formal complaint to the EEO office in Boston. I ended our conversation
with, "It may take months for them to investigate, but I suspect—in the
end—they'll award me back pay, and, their investigation might be uncomfortable
for you and for every highly paid manager (which I said with sardonic emphasis
so, to his ear, it sounded like "Man-ager") who thinks kicking the can
down the road is the proper course of action."
The regional manager
informed me the next day I'd be re-reassigned to admin/clerk duties, and
(so-as-to-avoid Fuck-n-Grace) asked if I could work weekday evenings and full
12-hour days on weekends?
...Good Times...
That was my schedule until covid19
quarantine closed the office. Then
I caught it. When they reopened, I decided not to return. I was afraid the
symptoms might be worse if I were re-infected or, if I was still
contagious but asymptomatic, that I might unknowingly infect others.
After all this unfolded, I became aware of
an odd correlation:
When I talked with people on the phone, informing them
I'd been infected by covid19, everyone who'd gone through life with
a conservative mindset asked initial questions framed with skepticism and
doubt:
Did you get tested? How do you know it wasn't just the flu, if you
haven't been tested?
You didn't have a serious cough? Couldn't have been Covid then,
because I've heard it infects the lungs and everyone gets a cough.
While everyone who'd gone through life with a liberal mindset asked initial questions framed with
concern and recovery wishes:
How are you feeling? What were your symptoms? Any lingering
side-effects?
How long were you bed-ridden? What are your work plans? How's
your wife?
My observations are, obviously,
anecdotal. But they can be succinctly described:
Liberals lovingly
Lavish levelheadedness
Listening, learning.
Careless contemptful
Conservatives constantly
Cause consternation.
Embrace empathy
Encourage, espouse, extol!
Eschew egotists.
Related side-note: When I started
work, I learned Vermont's total population had
been slightly less than 626,000 (in 2010's census). Recently, I learned the 2020 census
identified a slight increase of about 1,250 people (two of
whom were my wife and I). The US death toll from Covid19 will surpass
the entire population of Vermont this summer (two
months from now).
Get a vaccine and wear a mask! The reason you are such a fucking asshole is you lack empathy. It's your fault and it's killing people you egotistical, careless, contemptful, Nose-blind, Fuck.
additional Asperger's:
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