What Socrates Was Trying To Say...

It's been a hyper-hypo kind of week for me, and I've been spending a lot of time thinking. Thinking about a job I want, thinking about my plan not to get diabetes (and how many points are in leftover bag of Reese's Pieces), thinking about how I really should get around to cleaning my kitchen, etc. Lots of thinking.

But not so much talking. This is the downside of spending time at home. You spend lots of time in your head, and much less time talking to other people. This is why I'm so happy these days when I make plans to meet up with friends for a beer -- or even meet a nice little old lady at the deli counter of the local Giant. I'm psyched to talk to people.

So you can imagine how happy I am now that I started volunteering for a local organization. I signed up last month to work with a domestic violence organization down at the DC Courthouse, and training just started last night. The amount of training is pretty impressive -- we're meeting for about 40 hours over the next two weeks to talk in depth about domestic violence and what we'll be doing as volunteers.

I've done some of this work before and found it really rewarding, so it's nice to be able to help out once again. And on a selfish level, it's been great just to have the opportunity to talk to people. And not just about which brand of turkey lunchmeat is best...but real issues that matter to people. (That's not to say turkey isn't important, just not as important as other things.)

The people running the training are fantastic. After five years of working with many, many neurotic type-A overachievers -- myself included -- it's a nice change of pace to be hanging out with the touchy-feely non-profit crowd. So far, two women have been running things, and it's a wonderful, nurturing environment. (Unlike at prior jobs, I suspect I would get bonus points for crying.) I mean, the first day we made up our own rules about how the training would run. It's such a collective and inclusive experience. I love it.

That is, until Sarah showed up. (Names have been changed to protect the so-called innocents.) Anyway, this Sarah lady missed yesterday's session, and showed up today all apologetic. And claimed the chair right next to me. I knew she was bad news almost right away from the way she reacted when I offered her my pen to fill out some sign-in sheet. There was just way too much talking for what should have been an ordinary, run of the mill, social transaction.

It turns out that after the pen incident, Sarah didn't shut up for the rest of the training session. In fact, we didn't end up finishing everything we were supposed to cover today, and I blame Sarah. Turns out she's a grad student, with some sort of social work background, although I think she may be in grad school for International Studies. So who knows. Anyway, she talked pretty much every chance she could.

Sarah prefaced her first 3-minute, multi-part question with the phrase "I know this really doesn't have anything to do with what we're supposed to be doing as volunteers, but..." My reaction was: WTF? I mean, if you know it has nothing to do with anything we're doing, then why are you asking...other than to hear yourself talk and/or show off how supposedly smart you are. (I thought that just happened in law school.)

About thirty minutes into the training, I was pretty close to my limit. For a brief moment, I decided it was my fault that she was talking so much -- after all, when we made our rules the day before, I came up with "No Question is Too Stupid." Stupid, stupid, stupid rule. How could I let myself get so touchy-feely and suggest that no question is stupid. Clearly -- CLEARLY -- that's wrong. But wait -- she missed hearing the rules because she wasn't there, so it's not my fault that she's asking stupid questions.

After about an hour, things got worse. I was having a difficult time hiding my disgust with all the inane questions and grandstanding. At first, I was just rolling my eyes and giving some pointed looks to one of the instructors to see if she agreed with me about the inanity of it all. (I'm convinced she did agree.) But after not too long, I found myself talking a lot just to try and keep her from talking.

And then, the coupe de grace. The words "Well, I think if you look to Freud -- " were barely out of Sarah's mouth before I fell apart. I nearly laughed out loud at how ridiculous she was, but I decided laughing would be in poor taste, particularly since it was a discussion about domestic violence and really horrible stuff. (Not that I was really paying attention any more, so strong was my dislike of this grad student.) Anyway, I suppressed my laugh the best I could, but I was still left with a smirk. A smirk. At a domestic violence training class. Full of touchy-feely people. And possibly some domestic violence victims.

So I ask you this: What's worse? The blowhard grad student who can't stop talking about Freud. Or, the lawyer who is smirking through a discussion about domestic violence -- and who also can't stop talking.

Not good, my friends. Not good at all.