They Don't Like Me... They Really Don't Like Me!

Back in 2006, when I was studying in St. Petersburg, the NGO which sponsored my program invited me to represent them in a forum on education for the upcoming G8 in Moscow. The guest of honor would be Margaret Spellings, president Bush's Secretary of Education. With dozens of professional teachers and administrators in attendance, I assumed I would just be sitting in the back somewhere, listening to everyone else talk about the importance of good relations between the US and Russia.

To my great surprise, not only did they sit me right next to Ms. Spellings, but they had me do most of the talking. As I soon realized, behind this decision lie some very shrewd logic. Ms. Spellings had a lot of meetings to go to: she wasn't going to remember a bunch of awkward old chicken ladies banging on in broken English for 2 hours (Russians have a tendency to ramble on). They needed a good-looking young lad, an up-and-comer who could charm the secretary: a face she'd remember when it was time to review funding for our program. As it happened, I hit it off so well with Ms. Spellings, who told me she wanted to adopt me, that my company decided to hire me to run their Siberian office. It was my 2004 DNC Obama moment.

Charm is a funny thing though. Sometimes you can skip ahead three spaces on the great game board of life with a few cheeky remarks or a flirtatious smile (even with other guys). But not everyone receives that attitude so warmly. There's a woman at my school in Kureha - let's just call her Ms. Rivers (the translation of her name). Ms. Rivers doesn't like me. It doesn't matter what I say or what I do; I can't win her over. I'm not completely certain what first sparked her contempt for me, but I think it might be the very thing which won over the heart of Margaret Spellings back in Moscow.

First let me say a few things about Ms. Rivers, ah screw it, let's just call her Deborah. I don't like making blanket statements about people, but if lil' Debbie loves her job of teaching Junior High School students English, she hides it well. Never cracking a smile, always scolding the kids for not knowing the answers, it's no surprise the kids' faces light up when I walk into the room. It's frustrating for her indeed: I teach about half the classes she does, I have a lot of free time in the teachers room, I don't have to prep that much, and the kids love me. And so with these little coals fueling her engines, Debbie gleefully used an opportunity to point out what she felt was a shortcoming in my approach to teaching.

I was listening to my headphones, as many teachers do, working on something for the next class, when Debbie came up to me and said, "Excuse me, but I need a worksheet from you today and all you ever do is play on the Internet, this is not your job to play on the Internet." I was livid. I had already gotten a bad rap from her a few months ago over not wearing a tie. So I approached her and said the following: "Look, I'm glad you feel comfortable telling me when you disapprove of something I am doing. Any time you have a specific criticism of my work, please tell me. But don't just make a blanket statement like 'all you do is play on the Internet.' That's very insulting especially since I work hard at this school and care about teaching the kids." Debbie showed embarrassment. Charm aside - sometimes you need to as tactfully as possible hand someones ass to them.

I made a compromise with her that day: I would always finish making worksheets for her class before doing anything else (because all of the other teachers trust my ability to run a class efficiently). When it comes to people like Debbie, sometimes it's easier to just meet them half-way, but you'd better call them out on their bullshit before you do it, or else they'll walk all over you.

I don't know why some people look at me and see a charming young lad, while others see a snotty little know-it-all prick. You eventually have to sit back and realize that no matter how high of an opinion you have of yourself, you can't control what others see when they look at you. I've encountered many situations in my life, both in relationships and with coworkers, where it's been so easy to say "but I'm so awesome, how could you not like me?" Indeed, John, you are awesome, but not everyone sees it that way. After all, someone out there looks at lil' Debbie and says "wow, what a great girl!" Who are you to say they are wrong? All we can do is be happy with who we are inside, and know that when we do that, other interesting people will appear in our lives as well. The rest, we just have to learn to deal with.