Hey, honey, mind photocopying this — and your ass — for me?

A recent sexual harassment lawsuit was tossed out of court in the USA. It doesn’t amount to much in the scheme of things, but I’m fucking elated about it.
During writing meetings on the show “Friends,” things would get raunchy. Sex-talk and profanity would lace the meetings, and one woman got her panties in a twist as a result of it.
I’m sick and tired of the politically correct bullshit out in the world. Whether it’s no longer being able to flirt at all at work or having to check your tongue before you speak, people just take things way too goddamned seriously.
I recently had a reader object to my use of the word “chick” when talking about women. I had to rewrite my response to her because I was so pissed off at first. What the fuck? “Broad” or “skirt” or “twat” or “bitch,” yeah, those are offensive, sure. When you get an email from me, wanna know what the sign-off signature reads? “Resident Cunt.”
Words are words. Intentions behind them are what matters, and people need to start looking at the big picture, not using a macro lens to examine every little happening.
I will never, ever clean my language up for you, people. Sorry, not going to happen. Don’t like it? Read someone else. Go read fucking Miss Manners, for all I care. My blog, my words, my way. Soon, I’ll be having to watch every period and every verb when editors harangue me for perfection and for publication-quality work, but for now? I’m a rebel with a cause, baby, and my cause is “whimsy” and “spontanaeity”. I think it, I say it.
This chick, getting a job on a sitcom about sex, one of the top sitcoms of its time (this was six years ago), was LUCKY. She was FORTUNATE to have an inside fly-on-the-wall perspective of some of the best comedy writing on television. She was warned about the workplace approach when she got the job, yet she decided to rock the boat based on her own narrow perceptions.
It doesn’t work like that, honey.
This is tantamount to something we have occurring a lot here in Vancouver, home of the million-dollar apartments. Yuppies move into areas with clubs and bars and then they piss, moan, and bitch about noise after they’ve moved in. What part of “entertainment district” did you fail to fucking comprehend BEFORE you moved in, HUH? Fucking whiners.
There are a lot of standards I possess that are not met by the world at large, whether it’s cleanliness, food, manners, what have you, but when I leave my front door, I know I need to compromise. That’s life. But these whiners and wimps looking for a perfect, safe, clean, proper life, they’re spoiling it for the rest of us.
It’s one thing to say that unwanted sexual advancements are not appropriate for work, but it’s another thing to let that pendulum of so-called decency swing to extremes. Life just isn’t as fun as it used to be. Personally, I always pushed the envelope in the office. I was known as “flippant.” When I write, I have a backspace key. You think I’m off the hook here? You don’t know shit. In person, the things I say, man, I’m amazed I’ve never been beaten senseless and left for dead some days. Having a cute smile and a twinkle in ze eye serves a girl well, it would seem.
But why should I have to watch what I say? Why can’t I just say it, and if it’s too much, apologize? When did we start cutting the leg off before the gangrene set in, huh? We’re a preventative society now. Playgrounds aren’t nearly as fun as they used to be. Merry-go-rounds are practically a thing of the past. Teeter-totters? Dear god, the potential for death and dismemberment! Get that thing out of here!
We are a nation of pussies, and I don’t mean in the get-it-wet-and-get-it-now “mreow!” sort of way. We’re wimps. We’re too timid. “Park your indecency at the door and homogenize with the rest of us” seems to be the credo of the day. If we were a colour, we’d be beige, man.
So, we’ve had a small victory here with this court case being trounced. For once it seems like filth and debauchery are allowed to be a part of the creative process. But what about the rest of the world? What about workplaces that are boring and stoic? What if a little juice and impropriety was good for productivity? Maybe workers wouldn’t be so compelled to surf for tits and ass when the boss ain’t looking. Who knows. All I know is, talking about sex and swearing and being inappropriate makes me smile. Smiling means I’m happy. Happiness means I get more shit done. Getting more shit done means the wheels of this economy work better.
There’s an argument for scrapping the harassment laws. Economic benefit. Really, look at it – all this shit came into play since the whole Justice Clarence Thomas “Is that a pube on my can of Coke?!” scandal way back when. The economy? Has been tanking ever since.
A connection? Elementary, Dr. Watson.

***

Addendum: Okay, I’m being a tad facetious, but really… don’t we all hate work a little more than we used to? Isn’t impropriety, oh, I don’t know… fun?

9 thoughts on “Hey, honey, mind photocopying this — and your ass — for me?

  1. roscoe

    Nice work…Love the “nation of pussies”, way to true…

    Whatever happened to a spanking?

    What happened to getting hurt playing as a kid?

    What happened to making mistakes so we can learn and live by them?

    The world is going to hell in a handbasket and it’s not having alot of fun doing it either…what is the point of having a thought if your too scared to voice it?

    C’mon, how fucked up is the world nowadays anyway with everybody trying to be someone else…or scared to say what’s really on the brain…

    Nice post Steff…

    I could go on and on too but why…you already led the way…I’m just going to say it in a darker flavour of chocolate 🙂

  2. myself

    Way to go! Great post!

    I heard about that being tossed out also, and thought to myself “yay!”. I will admit, I work in a predominantly male area of business, and some of the stuff I hear in a warehouse here and there is what might be considered unsavory, but I’ve been known to laugh or join in and shock the guys with what comes out of my mouth. Hey, life’s too short, I can take a joke I tell ya!

    And as for the Vancouver whiners in the “entertainment district”, I go on worse for you. I live in a suburb of Montreal, about 5 streets from the border of the airport. Which has been here for eons (more than 50 years). I knew where it was when I bought my house, but the complainers abound! You buy a house near an airport, you’re gonna hear planes people!! Thankfully it’s not the 70’s anymore when your china would rattle in the cupboards.

    Complainers, all complainers and I’m damned tired of the whining, I can tell you!

  3. calligraphy

    Steff, I agree with almost all of this post, but I have to respectfully point out one thing. I agree that our society has contracted a bad case of wimpitis, and I would love to be able to speak my mind more freely, especially about my body and sex-related stuff. But interactions in the workplace are a little more complicated — and potentially harmful — because of the power imbalance. I know it can be darned difficult to address patterns of little things that make one feel uncomfortable, sexual harassment or otherwise.

  4. Anonymous

    I’ve found that I’m a lot more comfortable around eccentric or abrupt (often misconstrued as “rude”) individuals.

    I think it’s ’cause I don’t feel I have to be on my guard and “nice” all the friggin’ time.

    – me.

  5. scribe called steff

    Calli — Oh, I totally agree that SOME kind of law needs to be in place, and that the ability to act on such harassment needs to remain both transparent and easily accessible, but I’m just tired of going from one extreme to the other. Can we not find some kind of middle ground that allows us some kind of leniency to be, well, oh, I don’t know… human?

    (I’m not grousing at you, but at society. It’s the societal equivalent to finding out there’s a knocking in the transmission, and instead of topping up the fluid or doing routine maintenance, we throw the whole fucking engine and tranny out, then replace it all with a rebuilt that has no guarantees on longevity anyhow. It’s fucking moronic, really.

    We shut down all communications in the hope of alleviating a problem that should be fixed by talking and resolution, not by outlawing interaction of any kind. Did I mention it was moronic? Right, that again, then.)

  6. April

    Good job, girl! I agree with you more than I can say. This whole PC bullshit that so many people live their lives by drives me insane.

    I’m all for people actually saying what they think. Stopping to worry whether we might or might not offend someone wastes precious time that could be spent actually conversing with people.

  7. Sean

    yey for the desanitisation of everything…. life was ment to be dirty 😉

    then again… if theres some dickhead who just persists on making unwanted serious sexual advances he shouldnt be able to run and call assult on you when he gets bitch-slapped

    (unlike me who makes unwanted sexual advances just to see the looks on peoples faces XD

  8. Tori Holcombe

    Steff,
    I couldn’t have said it better. I struggle with the school systems and the impact on my children. “Why can’t you be like little Johnny?” What they really mean is your son is bored in my class because I suck as a teacher. Recesses, a thing of the past. Playing chase in elementary school with the boys and being dragged back to base a horror to today’s yuppies.
    I’ve racked my brain. Lost sleep. Fought it to no avail. It’s sad days for the children of recent years and today. They will never experience abandoned, unbridled FUN as a child. It’s heartbreaking.
    Working in a conservative company is a challenge. No matter how many times I say ‘fudge’, fuck explodes more often. No matter how many times I call bovine fecal matter, bullshit roars out. I try and I try and I try. The problem is the replacement words just don’t have the same impact. Plus there are times it just needs to be said. I mean PLEASE.
    Expecting the pink slip any day, but output seems to be the winner so far….Tori

Comments are closed.