God damn it

This morning I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth. I heard the guy next door make a couple of his annoying, whiny noises. I said “God damn it” and I went into a major flashback to the 90's. The face of a former co-worker floated in front of me, mouthing his infamous words “I find that really offensive.”

I've got a backstory of trade labor. I'm not going to blab endlessly about that. Just visualize that a woman who worked in non-traditional roles starting in the 70's must have either had a great sense of humor or a little spunk, but more than likely both.

I could trade jabs with the best of them, nothing was ever mean-spirited or at least I never saw it that way. I managed to get along pretty darn well with people and I think people were happy to have me around. But something was creeping in, a new way of thinking. The Funcatcher. An ominous cloud, a heavy presence lurking in the corner. Suddenly the HR department became Operation Central. Ok. Before I go further, there were things in the workforce that needed to be addressed. But somehow humans never know their happy mediums.

I was raised Catholic. I went to Catholic school. I was raised by New York parents in a working class town on the south shore of Long Island. No, it wasn't the Hamptons. What I'm getting at is that normal speech for me included a lot of average cursing. “God damn it.” “Son of a bitch.” Pretty normal in my house. Never heard the raunchy four letter words under my parents roof. My dad was more colorful with some of his ethnic descriptions, but none of the heavier stuff either. Born in Brooklyn in 1912, there was still a Dutch influence believe it or not. One of his favorites was “dumb dutchman.” The family understood where and when he came from, so we pretty much just let it fly over our heads. There was no big deal. We knew he treated people fairly, nothing at anyone's expense.

So in the mid 90's there was an issue because I would blurt out “God damn it” at the appropriate moment. I was told by the new guy, ok I'm not going to call him Howdy Doody, that he was offended by my taking the Lord's Name in vain. I never thought of it like that. I think I knew Jesus pretty well and you're telling me that if he hit his finger with a hammer he didn't curse the dark? All I can say is that at least he told me to my face and didn't just go crying to management. But he did that too. Why me God? People used “Fuck” all the time, but my little “God damn it” was the problem. The work we did had to be perfect so a little release now and then was healthy. Now I had to bottle my speech? The problem is that I am too considerate of others at time. It was all me. He couldn't just relax a little. The weird part is that I mostly joked, I didn't walk around with a crankmeister face. So now a fog of inhibition took up a percentage of my mind. Not good. Printing required a full spectrum of talents. Manual, technical and creative. Throw inhibition into the mix and you get a ball of stress in the back of the neck.

Oh boy. It goes on. We worked with some adult material and everyone that was hired had that fully explained to them. Our biggest client. I don't know... I think the people that worked on it handled it pretty well. You either had to have a sense of humor or you'd go crazy. Up until that point most of the people in the profession were a little off center, a little different. You had to have a little bit of an artistic eye, so you got all the personality traits that go with that. We learned hands on, but now people were coming in with “schooling.” Graphic Arts degrees. I'm sorry if you have one, but we could really see the difference. If they “didn't learn it in school” most of these kids had a problem figuring solutions to a problem. Maybe they were never given the encouragement to use their brains. Just follow the books.

Where I'm going with this is that at about the same time, I suddenly became the “go to” for all the young women new to the company. When I was sitting in front of the screen working on a job I'd get visitors telling me their problems. I've always been a good listener. But now they're crying. Literally crying. Don't get me wrong, I've cried in the workplace but it was usually because the stress was too much for a normal human to handle. I tried to rattle off some kind of wisdom, but it wasn't enough.The guys that worked with the stuff awhile were pretty cool. Any conversations we had were mostly about the absurdity of everything when looking at the human anatomy, either on a transparency or on the screen. But some of the new guys (except for Howdy Doody... he was excused from that client) had a problem with expressing themselves a little too much. Humans, we hurt ourselves in so many senseless ways.

What happened? What was the solution? The whole layout of the company changed. They moved the “adult section” behind cubicle walls. The least talented crew was put to task. No loud conversations. It was like walking on eggshells. In a way it was a relief when they finally lost the account. The cubicle walls could come down.

I never really felt at ease after that in any place of employment. What will I say next that will astonish the crowds? Forget just places of employment... I pretty much found myself keeping experiences to myself. Did we become too standardized at some point? Unable to put ourselves in a different time and place, we began to ostracize the stragglers. Did we unknowingly create a Stepford where we could all feel uncomfortable?

But after all, I still say “God damn it” and I really don't think he cares. I saw this change to speech repression start happening in the 90's. Which is really strange because there was a whole thing going on in the opposite direction at the time. And that I liked. So what happened? Why did we choose the path we did? Are we insane? And I never want to see the vision of Howdy Doody swooping back and forth in my mind again.