Today’s post comes from disgraced and disreputable former journalist Bud Buck.
The FAA announced today it will assess delay-blame on a minute-by-minute basis across the entire nationwide air traffic system so travelers do not waste time nursing their misdirected ire.
“I’m mad as hell,” said perpetually angry regional sales manager Aaron Shoelicker. “If I have to sit on the tarmac for an extra 20 minutes alongside some whiney infant who can’t stop blubbering about his need to get to Tampa for a noontime meeting, I want to know immediately who I can hate for being put in that situation.”
Shoelicker complained that during an especially lengthy airport delay earlier this month, he was allowed to spiral into a towering fit of rage only to find out later that the culprit was bad weather at his scheduled destination.
“I got wound up and had a monumental tantrum at the check-in desk. Later, when I found out the reason for the hold-up, I felt like an idiot because I was essentially shouting about Minnesota having a snowstorm.” he said. “Back in November I was begging for snow, so the irony is not lost on me.”
Simone Forage, another frequently ballistic flyer, admitted exhaustion from repeatedly launching herself into a series of spittle-soaked tirades in response to a recent spate of unattributed flight postponements and missed connections.
“I didn’t know who, exactly was behind all this,” she said, wistfully. “So I let the flight attendants have it, and everybody in first class got a piece of my mind too. If someone had simply explained that it was really the Republicans’ fault, I could have focused my ranting more efficiently.”
The FAA will closely measure degrees of travel-delay blame and will categorize it across a spectrum of responsibility that includes Democrats, Republicans, the President, Congress, Gays, Television, the NRA, Hollywood, Video Games, the Koch Brothers, Mario, Luigi, and the Kardashians. The results will be posted on large information boards at all major airports, and airline employees from the pilots to the gate agents will apportion blame for each delay at the time it is announced.
“We owe this to the traveling public,” explained Special Agent Foster Wellington of the Federal Spleen Administration. “Helping people fly off the handle productively allows us to conserve our National Bile Stockpile, which needs to be nurtured in case we encounter something that’s really worth getting all upset over.”
How do you manage your anger?
Trail Baboon 
Rather poorly, to be honest. It’s the one emotion I’ve struggled over a lifetime to express appropriately – the problem being I was reared with an iron-clad rule that anger was forbidden and never, ever to be directly expressed or even acknowledged. My mother could be so rageful that her voice screeched and her face was red, but when I commented that she sure seemed angry, she outright denied it, saying, “I’M NOT ANGRY, I’M FRUSTRATED!!!!” Even employing the word made her madder and quickly made me into a target.
As a result of this conditioning, I’ve worked way too hard to at least try to avoid anyone getting angry at me. This, of course, has lead to taking other people’s crap far too often. Even observing someone else being angry freezes me like a deer in headlights. I figure that maybe in the next life, I’ll get it “right”.
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Taking other people’s crap will make me angry for sure, so I tend not to. Usually I’ll confront the offending behavior long before I get angry about it, and that is key; if I wait too long, I’m likely to yell and say things that are hurtful.
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i used to travel quite a bit and get to the nw vip lounge on a regular basis where beer and whiskey was free and the war stores flowed like wine from the road warriors with egos only surpassed buy the blowharded abilites they possessed and shared with we of listening victim status. the tendency to see the world through your eyes and your eyes alone never ceases to amaze me. certainly it is understandable to see the world through your eyes but not to realize that there are other factors to be included in the final analysis is point of my disdain.
i have seen the loud obnoxious me me me bufoons tirade at top decible pitch to the world as if their wishes and those of the universe were one and the same. i hate loud obnoxious bufoons especially when i find them to be present in my skin. i have opinions that surface occasionally to the disappointment of the gods and the the eventual re accessed perspective when hindsight and understanding focus on what should have been. did you ever notice different forms of alcohol provide different temperaments. a beer buzz is very different from a whiskey toot. tequilla is a beast unto itself and cognac warms my ears as it melts my brain. a sip of coffee when the distractions appear lends an aire of distinction to an otherwise classless spectacle when a judgmental error of prioritization presents itself in the form of blowharded bufoonery. knucklehead to thine ownself be true. leave no doubt as to the fullness of the non thinking going on at times like these. these everlasting celebrations of lifes true lessons in humility and the power of things that can never be undone are lifechanging things to behold. better to keep your mouth shut and allow the world to think you a fool than to open it and remove all possible doubt is a reoccurring storyline. its good to have consistency be a part of the equation but then again sometimes not so much.
today with a heightened sense of articulation when anger frustration and or a feeling of getting screwed enters the scenario i often employ the art of articulation and precision fillet techniques to the poor defenseless schmuck on the other end of my experience being left with no power to right the wrong i have been dealt. i often ask if i am speaking with the person who has the ability to alter the situation or if this discussion should be kicked up a notch to the person who does have the power to right the wrong. i am always assured that the supervisor will undoubtedly come to the same conclusion as the brash underling who has developed a skin of preservation in response to being placed on the frontline with no means of self defense. when the supervisor appears, assesses the situation and evaluates the possible option it is sometimes a good lesson to the bitch gods as to why the art of articulation is one to be celebrated. i am sure that the discussions after i leave an underling and a supervisor are much more interesting than the one we just finished. i try in these situations to get justice instead of angry.
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Well done. Sounds much like my techniques.
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Good morning. It sometimes takes me too much time to get over being mad. I’m getting better at this. It is especially hard to remain cool and not over react when being misunderstood or exploited by someone who has the power to get away with doing that. A few government officials or office holders come to mind. It is not a bad thing to have significant disagreements with important people in your life, even to the point of getting mad. That is part of the give and take of life and I think it is okay as long it is not done in a bad way.
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Rise and Shine you Baboonish Bumpkins! What is WRONG WITH YOU?
AND IT IS NOT MY FAULT! Self-righteous me.
Attractive, huh? When I am really overwhelmed with anger or other emotions, I cry and blame. Then I think, what is WRONG with _____? (Your state/name here). Most of 2000-2008, W’s administration triggered anger in me, therefore, those years were marked by me blaming “The Big Dick” (Cheney) for 1) all that was wrong with the world, and 2) anything wrong in my life in particular 3) and why doesn’t W fire that guy? They were just such easy marks and it did not harm anyone I really cared for.
Then I get a grip and just deal with it. Or not.
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Wait-anger can be managed?
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YES!!! I DON’T SEE WHY NOT!!! Opps, I mean I would like to respectfully state that I believe anger can be managed.
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🙂 🙂
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Well, earlier this week, I got, um, firm with a manager two levels up from me (the phrase, “that’s very disappointing” was used). My grandboss was a bit surprised by, in his words, how “passionate” I was…I usually don’t raise my voice at all at work (for the record: I didn’t yell). But this was an occasion where a tech decision was not so good for the current business needs. I was not pleased. I got firm. (And then after a whole day of mostly being “disappointed” or just “cranky” I came home and had a good cry in the privacy of my own home.) The next day was better.
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I learned a long time ago that anger makes a person stupid. That began as a dispassionate observation but morphed into a strategy. Angry people do things and say things that are not only stupid but almost always counterproductive. When I learned that I have unusual powers of self control, it became clear that I could handle aggressive situations by staying calm while my opponent grew angry and angrier.
I headed the CLA Martin Luther King program in its first year, a year when the U of MN was terrified about student protest. In CLA the single person we feared the most was an African-American woman named Anna. She was a large and loud woman who was known as a hothead. Somehow she decided that I needed to be put in my place. A meeting was scheduled so Anna could vent, and all day black aides in the program promised that me that “ol’ Anna gonna chew you up and spit you out!” And that’s the way the meeting began. As Anna roared at me I fell back into my calm, quiet state, and I don’t think I said much at all. Anna got more and more out of control, until toward the end she was saying things that even she didn’t believe, and she trailed off with a series of angry grunts. I sincerely felt sorry for Anna at that point, and I sure learned that the most effective response to anger is being calm.
That’s far too self-congratulatory, though. In spite of my history, I’ve had flashes of anger that left me spitting out stupid charges. When my daughter came home from school in tears because an assignment had gone badly, I phoned her teacher and accused him of being a miserable educator. That man later had a nervous breakdown that hospitalized him, and I can’t tell you how awful I felt as I tried to make him feel better. In other words, the few times I have yielded to the impulse to be angry have shown me how stupid I can become in the process.
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Reminds me of Rudyard Kipling:
If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise; . . .
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perfect caroline. thats the right way to handle it.
now the question was how do you handle it?
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The strategy of staying calm in the face of a raging bull frequently backfires (in my experience) because the mad one can’t get any relief or satisfaction from his/her target, and this is what he/she is after. It seems that when someone’s rational and emotional brain is disconnected, the goal is to make the “target” just as out of control as the one who’s raging. For me, this has been a Catch-22. By staying rational as a way of not making the other person mad at me, that person gets madder because I won’t “join” him!
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True, but we come at this with different expectations. I am doing what is natural and what works for me. You, a therapist, have to worry more about the state of mind of the angry person.
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Actually, I’m only talking about interactions with people other than clients here. Client anger is easily handled compared to anger coming from any other source.
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I’m learning to manage anger better. I was very passive when I was younger and I remember feeling like I could roll with the punches, or like I was a stream moving around obstacles in my path. I was hedonistic then and tended not to notice things the way I do now. At some point I finally grew up and settled down. I started to notice myself getting angry with others: in traffic, in stores, etc. Later, the problems at my former workplace began and I learned that I could get very angry indeed. Although some of my anger was justified (some was self-righteous, I’ll admit), it didn’t do me any good. As a matter of fact, I think my anger took years off my life. Stress and anger was making me sick.
I don’t have all the answers for managing anger. I just allow myself to be aware of it when I’m getting angry about something. I recognize it, accept it and then I wait. I usually feel much more rational after a minute or two and am less likely to say something I’ll regret. The person my anger has hurt the most in my life is me.
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I yell at the top of my lungs when the house is empty (usually after futily dealing with my computer in one way or another) or when I’m in alone my car. Certain days I have zero tolerance for idiot drivers (pretty much all of us at one time or another) and practice “private road rage” by cursing them through closed windows and using hand gestures that are ambiguous enough not be construed as aggressive.
It’s all very much like opening the pressure valve on a steam boiler every now and then so the boiler don’t blow.
Chris in Owatonna
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My son-in-law does the same thing. I wish I felt as good about it as you do, and I hope it truly works to release anger. He got upset last week and by the time he got home from his commute he had lost his voice from raging behind closed windows.
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I’ve come to think of venting and driving as equally dangerous as drinking and driving. I have observed that if I’m behind the wheel, anger = right foot pressing down on the accelerator. I’m not a fast driver normally, but the speedometer plainly shows that the speed of the vehicle is directly proportionate to my anger level. The best way to deal with it is to take a deep breath, let go of it, and ease up on the gas pedal.
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Chris, I also do some yelling where no one can hear it when I’m angry. More often than not, I am the person who is the object of my anger. HOW CAN I BE SO BLANKETY, BLANK, BLANK STUPID!!! I don’t mind using some strong words since I am the one I am addressing.
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i have conjured up a tactic that works for me. i laugh at the idiot in front of me and say to myself that i am elated to only have to deal with this person for this two minute chunck of life. imagine being in lifes mainstream with them on a full time basis. i also think of them as my mom and dad and realize that they are not jerks just poor sobs that are doing the best that they can and my getting exasperated helps nothing.
but there sure a bunch of those dumb bastards out there arent there?
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Nice to know I’m not alone, especially with the in-car yelling. The funny thing is, every driver screws up once in a while, so we’ve all been the “idiot driver” who incurs the wrath of every other driver at that intersection (or wherever). As long as it doesn’t become road rage, or carry over into someone beating their spouse or kids, I say no harm, no foul.
I don’t want to be the guy who holds all his anger in for years, then explodes and wipes out a building full of people with an Uzi.
C in O-town
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You are absolutely not alone in the car-yelling. It’s actually been a strain on me as a single parent to keep some of my car-yelling under control. Next year when the Teenager goes off to college, the gloves are coming off!
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Oh, I have a temper, and have had one since I was a small child. My parents never fail to remind me of a whopper tantrum I had at age 2 in which I became so angry I broke out in hives. I guess I was outraged by something my dad said to me in jest that I took seriously (he commented to me that I was having such a good time at a neighbor’s house perhaps I should just stay there. I took it seriously, and was outraged when they told me it was time to go home).
I now find that anger breeds anger, expressing anger only makes it worse, and that I have to just let anger go for my health and well being.
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I just watched a South Dakota public TV show that ended with a song performed by a massed youth orchestra and choir. I told myself I was probably looking at your daughter.
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If it was on SD public, it probably wasn’t her.
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north dakota , south dakota. is there a difference?
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My bad. I’d forgotten you lived in ND.
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Them’s fightin words, Tim!
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What I find really annoying are the “flat shoed fools” (fellow emplyees) we work with in the eastern part of ND who never remember that we are on Mountain Time, and schedule phone conferences or teleconferences an hour before we get to work, or during our lunch.
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You have two different time zones in ND? I didn’t realize that.
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Yep. Our corner of 8 counties is proudly on Mountain time and keep resisting moves to change us to Central time.
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In my Match.com days when I did so much dating, I lost a relationship with an interesting woman named Gayle who broke things off with me because of what she called my “anger issue.” Noting that I didn’t express anger much, Gayle decided I was a ticking time bomb whose anger would blow spectacularly some day. She was afraid to be around a guy who didn’t blow steam regularly. I found that highly amusing. I could never convince her that the reason I failed to display anger was not that I was suppressing it but that I didn’t have any anger to express in the first place. When people treat me badly, my usual response is to find it funny rather than getting stormy about it. None of the women I dated judged my character as quickly as Gayle did, and none–by a long shot–got it so wrong! I was lucky she decided I was dangerously angry and unable to show it 🙂
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I can’t quite imagine you going ballistic over anything, Steve, or even being mistaken for someone who would. My guess is that this woman had escaped a bad relationship and was hyper-alert for signs that she was about to make the same mistake twice…or three times, or four times.
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The last time I got really angry was about three years ago. It was amazingly lucky for me. I got furious at something happened the day I had to put my dear Katie to sleep, and my anger carried me through the grieving period better than anything else could.
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Morning–
I am blessed with a remarkably short memory. As Chitrader says, the valve blows and it’s over and soon I can’t remember what I was mad about.
And there are different degrees of anger for different settings.
Just last month trying to get home. We spent the day in the Charleston airport due to ‘mechanical failure’ and consequent rebooking; I didn’t yell at anyone. Because really, how would that help? As soon as we got back off the first plane I said, ‘OK, first off; we need snacks.’ And we all got a pop and candy bar and then we dealt with getting back home. Because if Kelly is hungry, ain’t no body happy! 🙂
When I get mad I yell (I won’t even pretend it’s only ‘raising my voice’– I yell.) And, if I’m at home I’ll swear a blue streak that would make a pirate blush. Then it’s over and I’m good. I don’t hold a grudge very long.
People in the theaters that know me well enough stand back and smile at me while my eyes bug out and the spittle flies. They know I’m a big teddy bear. But I have to admit; it’s kinda fun to scare the new kids; Perverse pleasure there. I try to warn them at the first rehearsal that I may yell; but it’s not personal and honestly, I’m usually not yelling ‘at them’, I’m just yelling at the ‘situation’. There’s one former student. He figured me out right away. And the problem was he didn’t give me the two minutes to calm back down. Spittle is flying and smoke is coming out of my ears and he’s still right in there poking me. And we’ve become good friends now and can laugh at each other. But boy, he sure did test me.
I hope you don’t all think less of me now.
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I had one director who really really made me angry once. She didn’t have a full understanding about tech and so it was not unusual for her to ask for things that were either not possible (not impossible, just not possible in that situation) or just plain didn’t make sense. For one show she asked me to move a door flat 2 days before opening. I had told her when we started the build that we were going to lose a few seats due to bad sight lines – she had known this for 6 weeks. 2 days before opening she decided it was a problem (at a theater that never sold out and certainly wasn’t going to sell seats that were usually bad anyway). I didn’t blow my stack, I didn’t yell. I did get angry – very angry. I just got very quiet. I politely told her what I wouldn’t complete if I moved her flat and door and left it at being her choice – moving something a few inches or not completing several other things. Then I found the costumer and vented…a lot… she was amazed the director was still alive (she knows if I get quiet and skip yelling it’s bad). Theater, I think, is a different critter for dealing with anger than most any other situation – but at the same time it has taught me a lot about dealing with it.
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I think when I was younger I used to get more angry. I specifically remember being 19 or 20, dressed up for maybe my dates prom? and having a flat tire– and a wave of calm came over me.
It was no big deal, I jacked up the car, changed the tire and we went to the dance. And it seems like that was the turning point. From then on while I might still get mad; it wasn’t the angry flaming outbursts of my past.
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Morning all. Discussion of flight delays hits a little too close to home today – spent over an hour this morning dealing w/ someone who just barely got onto the cruise ship in Barcelona before it sailed.
I guess I manage my anger fairly well, as I had to stop and think about the question for a bit. My relief valve is, sorry to say, swearing. Luckily, it doesn’t last long… just a few good vents seems to do it for me. And my swearing is usually private… no verbal bombs flying out in the world.
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Speaking of flight delays, I’m mad as hell at the GOP for blaming Obama for the air traffic controller’s furlough when they’re the ones who caused the sequester which necessitated the furloughs!
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let em go
cry baby cry baby. you are my kinda party for sure
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I’ve kept a link to this little snippet for years… it makes me laugh. I’ve never smacked my computer around, but I do think about it occasionally!
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i know that guy. his name is steve. iw orked with him at a company about 20 years ago and he is a nice guy to chat with but…. he has issues.
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You’re kidding, tim, you don’t really know this man, do you?
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yeah thats steve
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Oh my god, that’s hilarious!
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I think I can speak for most of us when I say, I’ve been close to there.
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I kicked the photocopy machine once, but it only hurt my foot.
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I have never knocked a monitor off my desk, but I have banged on a keyboard with my fists (and at least once banged the keyboard itself against my desk…that was a day that I had to change my system password and then *nothing* worked and every program and tool locked me out one by one…)
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Great blog, Dale. I’m so relieved to have such an inclusive list of places to where I can direct my anger.
I differentiate between frustration and anger. To me frustration is slow seething sensation that wears me down over a long period of time; to me, much more insidious than anger. If it goes on long enough, it will eventually turn to anger, and then I’m likely to blow my stack (the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back). This kind of anger I don’t usually experience with people I interact with casually or don’t know well.
Anger on the other hand, for me is usually an immediate passionate response to some perceived injustice or wrong. I don’t often express this anger, but when I do, I view it as good thing. For one, I usually feel better for having done it, and it also means I haven’t given up on the situation; I’m willing to fight to make it right. If on the other hand I just clam up, that’s a very bad sign. It means I’m not willing to tolerate what’s going on, and I’ll refuse to be a party to it. While I dislike rude people, telemarketers, inept service reps, and idiot drivers, but my response to them rarely rise to the level of anger.
In all my years of working, I got very angry exactly twice. In the first case I had finally had enough of the bullying of one the firm’s senior partners, and confronted him. No one ever stood up to this man, everyone feared him, but I had finally had enough and read him the riot act. I had a lot of lunch invitations from other lawyers in the firm that week, and it completely changed how he treated me! The second incident was at the school. My co-director made a very disrespectful and completely inappropriate remark to me during a staff meeting. I ignored it till the meeting was over, and then I went to her office. I told her that I had the curtesy to show her respect in front of the staff no matter how strenuously I disagreed with her, and that I expected the same courtesy from her. I demanded an apology, and got it.
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i have a few more notches in my belt pj
i live a passionate life. i have opinions and have never shied away form them . i am very comfortable being wrong and we always deal with that later. i feel the way i feel and thats all there is to that. i get angry say stupid stuff and move on. i always say tha tin business working woth someone is like marrying into a new dysfunctional family and figuring out how all the rules work. truth is life is like entering into a dysfunctional relationship and figuring out how it works. what is the world thinking. how can you be sooooo screwed up in the head you appear not to be a total moron so where in the world could this type of crap come form. i talked with a guy the other day and had to start laughing in the middle of the conversation if he was really the head of customer service? he said he was and that he would take care of it. i called back 6 days later and found he had done nothing for bad reasons and was not apoligetic but explained why the screw up happened in this case. i was exausted and just sighed . he said hed take care of it and he didnt. i have to call the owner of the company and let hi know im outta there because of his idiot employee.
i developed ulcers at about age 13 or 14 from trying to be quiet as i implode over stuff that i have no control over. i got the ulcers taken care of and the angst is masked in new and exciting ways but when i feel a doosey coming it may be too late. my family informs me i am out of it and walks away and i understand that they understand and appreciate them loving me just the same later on and letting me be unconsolable for the time being.
i feel the steam coming out of my ears , i really do. relief ha. i need a punching bag or a meditation mantra . the mantra comes into paly a lot more often than the punchjing bag. i remember one guy on my daughters baseball team laughing outloud and my uuummmmmmmmm……….. in response to something that had me ready to uncork. he said hed never seen that used in real life before. i use it all the time.
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Perhaps I’m lacking in the passion department, tim, but I much prefer calm to constant upheaval. My sister insists that I shy away from conflict, and compared to her, I do. I just don’t see the sense in getting myself all riled up over every little thing, especially things that aren’t personal or important to me. I used to engage in a lot more battles than I do these days when I, more often that not, will just shake my head and walk away.
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I stuff it or don’t acknowledge (or even realize) that I’m angry. Like CB, “Even observing someone else being angry freezes me like a deer in headlights.”
Sorry if I’ve told this before.
When son#2 was in preschool, I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out how/where he would attend kindergarten. We didn’t have the PDD-NOS (autism spectrum) diagnosis – or, rather, we had it but I didn’t realize that Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified was a diagnosis. I thought it was we-don’t-know-what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-him.
I just couldn’t imagine him sitting in a public school classroom. We applied for a special program but he didn’t qualify because he was too high-functioning.
So, he stayed at his Montessori pre-school that had a kindergarten program.
The next year, I had to figure out first grade and still couldn’t imagine public school. Wasband and I went to a conference at the pre-school to discuss. He said, “wasn’t there a program being considered last year?”. I kept my cool, of course, during the meeting.
Then, as I drove away, the fully-formed thought went through my head, “I can’t be mad at him because…”. I can’t remember or imagine what followed the “because” but the truth was that I was FURIOUS because he had been (and has continued to be) separate from the whole life of worry that surrounds me and #2son. I had LIVED that application process but he had been quite uninterested so that he could barely remember it.
By thinking “I CAN’T be mad at him”, I revealed to myself what I will do to disavow anger.
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Clyde has not been on the Trail for many days. If you are out there, Clyde, I hope you doing okay. You are missed.
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Clyde posted a few days ago. He wasn’t specific, but things are not good for him now.
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Thanks for the information about Clyde, Steve.
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If you do Facebook w/ Clyde, there have been a few comments from him the last couple of days. As Steve said.
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Once or twice I have gotten very frustrated with Darling Daughter – to the point of being not productive. Happened once when she was about three – about when she was old enough to really understand “time outs” and what they were for. I gave myself a time out on the stairs to just sit by myself and calm down, telling her Mommy needed a time out. So she gave me one. About 5 minutes later she came and found me and asked if I was feeling better and could she sit in my lap now. Yes, sweetie, Mommy’s better. I have used this same tactic from time to time since then – and Daughter has learned from it so now she sometimes does it as well (goes to her room and reads or draws until she has calmed down).
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Sweet story, Anna.
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Only once or twice????
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Well, okay, once or twice this year… 😉
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I can remember only one time when I lost my temper with my daughter. Molly was about three or four then. I was picking her up from daycare after a bad day at the office, and Molly chose that day to throw a fit and refuse to cooperate by getting dressed to go home. She became as nasty as she knew how to be. I kept my feelings hidden until I got her away from her daycare mom. When Molly was buckled in her car-seat and we were alone in the car, I cut loose. I remember trying to choose my words to find the ones that would hurt her and punish her for making such an ugly scene. I called her a brat and described–in unflattering terms–her conduct. As I was throwing verbal punches at my little girl, part of me was horrified by my own conduct. Then from the back seat, Molly began dishing it out to me. “I hate you! I hate you!” she said. The more I lashed her with my words, the more she gave it back to me. And some part of my brain was amazed at this whole scene. I remember thinking, “Good lord, that is one TOUGH kid!” We never repeated that scene.
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I’m glad that situation you just described got resolved. It sounds like it turned out okay in the end.
I once heard a teacher going much farther than you described. I happened to be in an empty hallway where I couldn’t be seen and heard a teacher talking to a student in an empty class room. The teacher was speaking in a very angry voice telling the kid that he was responsible for turning everything bad in the teacher’s class room and he was a totally worthless person who had no value at all. I couldn’t believe that a teacher would say that to a kid and I never had any respect for that teacher after that.
I must admit that I have said some things to my kids that went a little too far, which I regret, but not as extreme as what was said by that teacher.
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I had a teacher like that once. Oh, how we all hated her! She was one of those rare people who are attracted to teaching because the job gives you a lot of power over other people–little people who can’t fight back. I used to be friends with a girl who shared my hatred for that woman. One day my friend went back to the classroom after school had let out. She let that woman have it, although she was just in fifth grade. I remember her telling me she told the teacher, “You are a terrible teacher. You hate little kids, and it shows. There should be a law against letting people like you control a classroom.”
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It’s a great day on the Trail when I’ve snorted three times before even getting through Dale’s – I mean Bud Buck’s – intro. Thanks for <Aaron Shoelicker, Federal Spleen Administration, and National Bile Stockpile.
I could write a book about this. Wasband was much more “out there” when arguing than I was, with my stoic Scandinavian background. I expressed depths of anger with him that I had no idea I had. I learned if I was going to throw something, to throw it at the floor and not at him. I learned that I really needed to watch it because I could get physical with my anger. I remember giving my son a spanking that hurt my hand more than it hurt him. I’m not proud of that, but I see I was copying the way I was parented.
I rarely get truly angry now, but when I do i can still scare myself with the intensity – yelling, or nasty sarcasm, or my all time favorite: stomping out and slamming a door. I need to adopt one of the strategies I’ve read above, have something to turn to at those times. Will think more about this.
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I certainly have been there, Barbara. I doubt you are alone.
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My mother routinely would throw and break things when she’d get angry. I can’t bring myself to ruin anything of value, but I can certainly see there might be some therapeutic value in smashing dishes. I’d never do it though, I’d have to clean it up myself. Now beating the heck out of a mattress with a tennis racket, that’s different.
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A student answered his cell phone in the middle of a show. Sat in the back row and had a loud conversation. I went out and confronted him about it. He argued with me. I put my finger in his face. He put his finger in mine. The situation was escalating and I clearly was not helping anything by standing there whisper arguing with him so I walked away. Couple months later he showed up in the shop looking for work. We talked it over, both apologized and got along pretty well after that. He was a nice kid.
Working on a production of ‘JungleBook’. The lead actress playing Bagheera, the black cat, has been sick on and off. We’re in final dress week and the actress has just called in with pneumonia. This actress was tall and skinny. Our director steps in to play the roll for rehearsal, figuring he better get ready to do it for the show. Director is short and, not so skinny. Good thing the cat suit is stretchy.
About the time we’re ready for rehearsal to start, someone from security comes in to tell us a car parked in the theater loading dock has to be moved RIGHT NOW.
The director, in tight black cat suit, has a full blown hissy fit to this security officer. Got right in his face. I’m sure spittle was involved.
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Good thing the cat suit is stretchy. Too funny! How stretchy can a cat suit be? Apparently enough to compensate for considerable variation in size. I need an outfit like that.
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I haven’t been able to come up with a musical interlude for today’s topic. I hope to not raise anyone’s ire by offering this OT from Timothy McSweeney’s blog instead:
A FIELD GUIDE TO COMMON PUNCTUATION.
BY PETER K.
‘
Rarely at ease in its true habitat, the Yellow-Winged Apostrophe
(YWA) is known to “peace out” of its obligation to indicate
possession or contraction. Many, weakened by stress, fall to the
bottom of pages, assuming the vague shape of Bullshit Footnotes
(BF). Completely harmless, the YWA is among the least hardy of
punctuation and commonly dies before the full life cycle of a
single draft.
:
The Western Colon (WC), not to be confused with Two
Bouncing Periods (TBP), attaches itself with rows of small, sharp
teeth to lists. Originally from Western Canada, the WC has now
established thriving colonies in all countries, having been
inadvertently transported by way of cargo in large ships. Draws
blood and gives headaches when overused. Known to flock
alongside Overwrought Prose (OP).
;
Most commonly found in the papers of Students Trying to Look
like They Know What the Fuck They’re Doing, the Greater
Semicolon (GS) lays eggs in hundreds. The GS often enters into
a symbiotic relationship with the Common Comma Splice
(CCS). The size of a deer tick, the GS is also a carrier or Lyme
disease. Flighty but typically harmless, the GS is most effectively
removed with tweezers or red pen.
?
The Lesser Question Mark (LQM), a tertiary consumer, is most
commonly found at the ends of sentences that are not actually
questions. Example:
“A common theme in Animal Farm might be animals
overthrowing humans”?
The LQM is a pest whose droppings promote the growth of the
I-Literally-Just-Told-You-What-a-Comma-Splice-is Comma
Splice. Traps available at Home Depot and most WalMart
locations.
!
Drawn to the warmth of humor, the Long-Tailed Exclamation
Point (LTEP) is known to breed sentence after sentence,
producing offspring that weaken with each additional use.
Eventually, if used with such abandon, the LTEP’s signature
slender tail will fall, creating an Underused Period (UP). The
LTEP is easily recognizable by its flagrant misuse and affinity for
those purple flowers in your wife’s garden.
…
The most common of the genus ellipses, the Actual Ellipsis (AE)
[not to be confused with “..,” the Moron’s Ellipses (ME)] finds
regular use in correspondence meant to suggest a sense of
impending doom, especially with regard to tasks that require
urgent completion. Regularly partners with the parasite Comic
Sans. Avoids the cold. Example:
“Sally, stop taking my yogurt from the work fridge…”
“Gina, stop sending me Anthrax in the mail…”
As of March 2013, the AE has been labeled an invasive species.
All are welcome to poach, trade, or otherwise fuck around with
these bastards before open season ends in late December, when
someone will introduce the Rabid Comma Splice (RCS) in an
effort to exterminate all AE, only to somehow make the problem
much worse.
. . .
The Academic’s Ellipsis (AcE) is used by those who wish to
demonstrate just how much more they know about how to use
ellipses than you do.
The AcE is an endangered species in England and Australia.
Action taken to harm or kill an AcE in these countries is
punishable by three tardies equaling an absence, no excuses. The
AcE has a small, hard barb at the end of its third mark, which is
filled with the excess bitterness of adjunct faculty. The AcE stings
like a mofo but is easily repelled by deer urine and lectures on
Chaucer.
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OT – Just read that another guitar giant has left us. Bob Brozman passed away yesterday at age 59.
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Oh Dear. He was MY age.
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