5 minutes of hate

[sabotabby]

I was in the waiting room waiting for a CT scan when the news about the latest mass shooting came on the TV. I gaped; the mind can't immediately process that level of horror.

"Oh God," I think I said, maybe adding that some of my friends had kids that age.

"And the teachers are on strike," said the woman waiting next to me. "So you want to shoot the teachers too."

"I'm a teacher," I said.

"Well, it's really the unions."

"I support my union," I snapped as they took me in mercifully quickly.
I gave her the death glare as I came out. "You're giving me a dirty look just because I hate unions," she snarled.

"Try getting your information from somewhere other than the SUN," I said.

She proceeded to tell me that she was very informed and had a child and was a Ward 9 councillor, etc.

"Well," I said, "I have cancer. And when I get sick with a cold, I can't take off sick because my treatments use up all 10 of my sick days."

"Oh," she said. "I'm...sorry?"

"Remember that we're people too," I tossed over my shoulder as I limped away through the hospital's candy-cane decorated halls.

Comments

[firinel.livejournal.com]

...who the fuck, of sane mind, after hearing about a shooting tragedy, jokes about wanting to shoot other people!?

[sabotabby]

I am not entirely sure she was of sane mind. At least, that would be a more charitable conclusion than the one I immediately jumped to.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

did she actually say she wanted the teachers to be massacred

[sabotabby]

She used the occasion of a horrific shooting of a bunch of 5-year-olds to opine on how teachers should be massacred.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

My friend Bonnie used to have this very funny over-pronounced blink of disbelief she used to do sometimes. I am doing that.

[sabotabby]

I should cultivate that.

[monster-grrrl.livejournal.com]

Argh fuck that fucking shit.

[sabotabby]

Every so often I remember that most people hate me because of what I do for a living. It's weird.

[monster-grrrl.livejournal.com]

It's so weird. We entrust our children to teachers and schools to get the information they need that we can't give them ourselves, because we have to work our own jobs, or because we don't understand math or grammar or French, or because we just don't want to, or because we don't even think there is another option. The parents I work for always want to make sure that I'm going to be decent and respectful to their children, and that I have everything I need to do my job well. Why wouldn't they want that for their kids' teachers?

I haven't loved all my teachers, but I am so grateful for the ones who tried to connect with students, who treated us like human beings because they were treated like human beings. It breaks my heart to think about the people who introduced me to Shakespeare, to email, to reading, to how numbers work, to theatre, to so many things! To think about those people, and everyone I know who teaches now, having to give up job security, sick days, pay raises in order to do what is undeniably a very difficult job...I just don't like living in that world.

[sabotabby]

There are a lot of shit teachers, and I've had a few. (I think the main reason why I became a high school teacher, though, is that while my elementary school teachers were hit and miss, my high school teachers were, on average, completely amazing. But I know I was lucky and that I attended a well-funded arts school in a very upper-middle class area, and my experience was far from the norm.)

The thing is, there are a lot of shit cops, and shit lawyers, and shit doctors, and shit office temps, and yet whenever there's a news story about any of these professions, positive or negative, I don't see a million people commenting with "fire them all and hire them back at minimum wage." Even during the G20, when not a single one of the supposedly good cops out there spoke up against police violence, there were still people insisting that it was a case of a few bad apples. Teachers receive a special kind of hate. Weirdly, in my experience, it's not from the kids.

[lienne.livejournal.com]

fhzgnxvbnchmxhng

[sabotabby]

There was no desk at which I could apply my head nearby.

[lovableatheist.livejournal.com]

She proceeded to tell me that she was very informed and had a child and was a Ward 9 councillor, etc.

Wait a second. Am I getting this right? Was/is she a city councilor and did she really say that teachers should be shot?

[sabotabby]

Well, as someone raised upthread, there's a possibility that she was just nuts. Not that Toronto hasn't elected nuts before. Ward 9 is North York so I'd actually buy it.

And yes, she really said that teachers should be shot. For striking.

[lovableatheist.livejournal.com]

From what I could find, ward 9 was created in 2000 and only one person has held the seat since then. So, unless you spoke to Maria Augimeri, the woman in the hospital was probably just making shit up.

[sabotabby]

Yep, not her. That makes me feel a little better.

[radiumhead.livejournal.com]

I dunno, i say all the time all types of people should be shot. I dont actually mean it.

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

I think you handled that extraordinarily well.

[sabotabby]

I think the fact that I managed to not punch her in the face says a good deal about my anger management abilities.

[rackletang.livejournal.com]

Fucking seriously dude. WTF.

[culpster.livejournal.com]

As Ralph Malph would say, you still got it - even when appalled you still got it.

Not that you shoulda needed it. Punt! Off into the horizon she goes.

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

What. the. Fuck.

[sabotabby]

Right? Right.

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

People are such assholes at the best of times. In the face of tragedy*, they become belligerent assholes.

In situations like that, I keep forgetting to use the unbelieving stare instead of the horrified recoil. The recoil works, too.

* In the modern sense of the word. Don't even get me started.

[sabotabby]

I apparently have very little control over my facial expressions.

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't seem to either, which is odd, given what I have to do in my day job (sit in the room and listen to people spew fail at best, hate at worst without showing a reaction on my face). I guess I use it all up then.

[dustyasymptotes.livejournal.com]

[dustyasymptotes.livejournal.com]

(that gif actually works for many of your recent posts)

Even though I'm not really on lj (or facebook) much anymore, thinking of you lots - lots and lots of <3 (and lots of cursing at the various shitheels making you miserable)

[sabotabby]

That gif works in most cases.

<3 <3 <3

[goodliver.livejournal.com]

I always admire your verbal responses to people's nastinesses and stupidity.

[sabotabby]

I don't post the ones where I just flail and stutter. :)

[mimicucumber.livejournal.com]

If there's a bright side to this little encounter you are to be congratulated on saying exactly what needed to be said and hopefully, making her think a bit. I would have just mumbled angrily.

[sabotabby]

I was going to just mumble angrily but then my death glare was noticed.