While I was gone in Minnesota earlier this month, my colleagues on the Youth and Family Team decided I needed a new lanyard for the electronic card that opens some of our office doors. They got me the one you see in the header photo.
It looks quite nice, and is quite comfortable to wear, but there is a slight problem with it. It poses a safety issue. The beads on the lanyard are set on a strong, thin wire, and there is no catch on it that will release if the lanyard is pulled hard enough. That means someone could strangle me with it. Being strangled is something one needs to prepare for when working in a mental health facility. All the lanyards issued by our administration have safety release catches on them just for that reason.
I am not worried my colleagues have it in for me, but I thought they would have been more safety aware. We have safety in-services quite regularly. I suppose this is one of those situations I could write about to an advice. columnist “Are my coworkers trying kill me?”
Have you ever written to an advice columnist? Which ones do you like to read? Have you ever felt someone had it in for you?
Trail Baboon 
No. None currently although back in the day when Minneapolis had both the Star and the Tribune, I read both Dear Abby and Ann Landers.
Only two kids seemed to have it in for me back in jr. high. Craig Westerman (just for one day when something I did or said ticked him off–he chased me around the neighborhood for about 30 minutes. Thank goodness I was in shape from being on the cross-country team.).
George Kirberger, who pretty much hated everybody, decided he wanted to TRY to start a fight with me. This pacifist meekly declined and he went away.
Chris in Owatonna
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Whomever wrote with a marker “F..k Wes” on several rolls of vinyl, apparently didn’t like me. There were multiple instances of sabotage during the 6 months the project took to complete. I’ve a pretty good idea who this person was/is but we (my employer and trusted workmates) could never prove anything. With a crew of up to 40 guys, it seems likely that more than one person was involved. Group meetings were embarrassing for me. I did not enjoy that attention. Then again, it could have been someone with the other trades. F’em!
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During the lockdown, the KFAI Cart Crew wasn’t able to meet in person. So, we were all left to do stuff on our own. One of our gang created ‘the KFAI Answer Man,’ an on-air advice provider, whose answers were always related to listening or donating to KFAI. I’ve appropriated the character and write quite a few carts for him. For better or worse, I’ve turned him just a bit passive/aggressively snarky. Something I always thought was lacking in actual advice columns.
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Rise and Shine, Baboons,
I don’t remember writing an advice columnist, but I do read Ask Amy, who replaced Ann Landers from the Chicago Tribune. Amy Dickinson or “Ask Amy” also wrote 2 memoirs which I enjoyed very much. She is so resilient.
Where I grew as a child Ann and Abby, the real life twins, Eppie and Pauline Ledderer were from nearby Sioux City, Iowa. Therefore, everyone read both of them while gossiping about their real life estrangement. They both issue intermittent opinions about which way the toilet roll should be placed on the holder.
As a child I was very aware since the beginning of memory that two cousins, brothers, were out to get me. It was hard to miss since they regularly told me this. Their reasoning was revenge. My mother was making them behave and be respectful to Grandma who was raising them. Therefore, they decided to get revenge on me. Go figure. That situation got way out of hand. I also had a social services who was very incompetent, and who had limited social skills. She first seemed to like me a lot. Then when I got sick with breast cancer, she saw me as vulnerable, and was really out to get me. I had to use to the union rep to push back at that until my health stabilized, then I got another job.
Renee, I’ll bet someone around town who makes handmade jewelry could put the features on your lanyard that would make it less dangerous to your general health.
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That should be social services supervisor
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My mom was from Sioux City, and knew (from a distance) the Ledderer twins, who were at the same High School.
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Indeed someone had it in for me. A state legislator, but he had it in for many people. A seriously disturbed man. Caused me lots of grief. But I loved his two daughters as students.
Never read any advice columns. There are many layers of things that disturb me about the idea.
Students used to ask me for advice. If it was a simple issue, I would suggest the obvious answer. For more important issues, I would use Rogerian counseling or not if I feared for getting too involved in an emotional issue. It would be things like the 90 minute call in the middle of the night asking for advice on staying or dropping out of West Point.
Clyde
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I love it when we’re able to connect with students and talk about life.
I’ve not heard the term “Rogerian counseling”, so I looked it up. I like it.
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Can you say some more about that?
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Ha ha. So many good jokes about Rogers.
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Does they medical system have it in for me? Or are they that overworked, understaffed or uncaring? They have the annioyed voice down pat.
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I doubt they have it in for you, Clyde! I think they probably are understaffed.
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Back in 7th grade when Roger Ziemann was chasing me down the hallway, I figured he had it in for me. (Funny story; he had the reputation, and the gang of thugs that followed him. I never had much to do with him. And then two classes came together one day for a movie and as we shuffled around to fit, I bumped his desk with mine. And I panicked because I knew I was dead meat. To this day, I keep thinking, If I hadn’t showed fear, I bet it wouldn’t have ended with me running scared to the boys locker room and him shouting at me from the doorway.)
Met Roger 30 years later when he worked for a crew working on a silo. He played nicely with the dogs. I didn’t bring up the past.
On the townboard, I’ve been threatened with getting voted out, never any physical violence.
Another funny story, the people who threaten to vote us off, they don’t usually show up to vote in the first place and we sure don’t see them 6 months later when elections come around again. Not sure what part of the process they don’t understand.
Lanyards. I’d never worn one until I started attending Theater conferences. And then you could pick them up at different booths. And that’s where I learned about the breakaway ones. They DO seem like a very good idea no matter the job, but in your case, especially!
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I’ve never followed any advice columnists or asked one for help. Maybe I should have but I didn’t. I have a genetic stubbornness and conviction that I can figure it out myself.
You can’t work for the state for over 45 years without having someone take a dislike to you. After my supervisor at the DNR was fired for harassment, I had a few older male staff refuse to be in the same room with me. I don’t know why they disliked me. I was not a threat to them. They disliked the supervisor when he was there. I guess they needed someone to dislike to get them through their days.
I’ve also had coworkers dislike me and try to set me up for trouble. Usually the reason for this dislike was because of my work standards. Many of them wanted things to be easier (for them) and wanted to cut corners. I’m not a corner-cutter so they didn’t like to work with me. Most of the time their attempts to set me up backfired on them (because I’m not a corner-cutter) and they’re the ones who paid.
Also, once a supervisor who was well-known for targeting certain staff got angry with me because during a licensing review, I explained to the dietitian the dietary practices the staff were using that had caused individuals to gain weight. The dietitian took the information I gave her up the chain and my supervisor was questioned about why these practices had been allowed to continue. She turned around and sent me an email, asking, “Why did you do that???” I responded, “Because it’s my job.” I knew then that I was her target. I transferred to another worksite.
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Sigh…that becomes the only choice.
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Hard to believe she was stupid enough to put that in writing.
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I know. I saved that email for several years, even after transferring out of her reach.
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I have a 15 year old email that I’m still hanging onto.
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Similar situation?
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My first year back at the school in Stubbekøbing, after three years at the boarding school in Nykøbing, there were two girls in my class who had it in for me. I was a year younger (eleven) than everyone else in my class, and a skinny little twerp to start with. They thought I was stuck up because I had gone to a private boarding school, and they were going to teach me a lesson. I have no idea how they got that notion, or how they even knew, but I suppose they had heard their parents talk. Stubbekøbing was, and still is, a town of only 2,300 people. These girls both lived close to the school, and I had to pass by one of their houses on my way home to mine. They’d lie in wait for me behind various hedges, and jump out and physically attack me. Because their attacks with some regularity resulted in torn and dirty clothing, not to mention cuts and bruises, I’d get in trouble with my mom when she got home from work. It was a living hell that went on for months. Mom would not believe that I hadn’t done anything to cause this, it had to be my fault. These attacks only stopped after I made friends with another girl in my class, and would go home with her after school. She lived in the opposite end of town, so I no longer had to walk by where my attackers usually ambushed me.
The following year my family moved to Lyngby. Four years later, I spent a couple of weeks during my summer vacation visiting uncle Leo and his wife Connie in Stubbekøbing. Leo was a painter. His employer was the father of one of my attackers from four years earlier. I’ll never forget the evening Leo came home with the news that she had been killed that day. She had been riding her bike with a friend on the country road leading out of town, had swerved into the path of a passing car, and had been killed on the spot. She was sixteen. It still bothers me that I didn’t feel bad about the news, but I distinctly remember that I didn’t. At least I had enough sense to not verbalize it.
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I have never written to an advice columnist, though I have read several of them semi-regularly over the years. I find it interesting to see what kinds of things people seeks advice about.
Following a tip from our late baboon, Steve, I occasionally read Carolyn Hax’s column in the Washington Post. I find her answers thoughtful, cogent, and thoroughly modern. She doesn’t pussyfoot around; a straight shooter.
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Yesterday all day after reading PJ’s party witch story, I was trying to think of the word for burning an image/or representation of something. In the middle of the night I wake up with “effigy”. Burning in effigy. Today I cannot think of the British phrase for advice columnist. I looked it up: Agony Aunt. Love that.
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Agony Aunt has a certain flair to it, I like it.
I almost used the word effigy in my comment yesterday, but didn’t because I thought of an effigy more as representing a particular person. Just looked it up, and it is, in fact, also used in the broader sense of representing a prototype of a certain character.
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I’ve never written to an advice columnist but I do read them. It always makes me feel a little bit better about my life and my decision-making. I read Ask Amy, Carolyn Hax and Miss Manners these days.
The only time I can recall someone having it in for me was a boss at Software Etc. He was one of those incompetent managers who felt like when he came into the organization he needed to clean out the “deadwood“. Despite the fact that the deadwood was having spectacular results. At one point I had some surgery and I was out for six weeks. During that time, the company who did our employee moving called me at home and asked me about moving a certain person who was leaving the headquarters and going to a store in San Diego. I told him point-blank call Stan. I don’t know if he called Stan or not but apparently the move was more complicated and expensive and I never did figure out who approved it. Either the moving company just went ahead and did it based on the employee’s desires or Stan approved it and forgot. He was on me about it when I got back; I told him that if he wanted me to take a lie detector test I would. Fortunately there was no one else in the entire Software Etc. organization who was on his side and he eventually had to drop it. I left on my current job two months later.
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I used to love reading Ann Landers – no nonsense, and sometime smart-alecky answers. I read Amy if I happen to seen her column, and I love Miss Manners, who is author of one of my favorite quotes: “We are all born charming, fresh, and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.”
I can think of people who don’t like me, but so far can’t think of anyone who had it in for me.
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