I was doing some training at an office interstate recently and one of the ladies I was to train was a pending nightmare. You know the type of woman who is loud, overbearing, flashy and usually the archetypal mean girl. I have trained her before and was not looking forward to doing it again. The last time was a constant onslaught of me, me, me, god aren't I funny, smart and so much prettier than you.
Now none of this was actually said but it was definitely there, even allowing for my own insecurities. So this time I came prepared with a plan to show her a new process that would make her life easier, lulling her into a false sense of security, before moving on to some areas where she was making big mistakes and refusing to admit she was wrong. Unexpectedly it was made it easier by her slavish devotion to trends. The first thing that came in to my mind when I sat down with her was "What the fuck is with the eyebrows"!
At this point I will admit to using eyebrow powder. I use it to fill in gaps from overenthusiastic plucking of my eyebrows when I was younger. This, however, was serious overkill. There was so much brow powder there that it was not possible to actually identify a single brow hair. It was like a pair of slugs had decided to take up residence on her face.
It was really distracting and just a little scary. It took me a couple of minutes fighting the temptation to go cross-eyed or actually say "What the..." out loud, but once I had managed to stop staring at the slugs, I moved to a sense of calm. What was I stressing about? Ms mean girl suddenly seemed really desperate and I started to feel just a little sorry for her.
Training became so much easier. I no longer cared how overconfident and cocky she was because she looked so ridiculous. This must be akin to the old adage "imagine the audience in their underwear".
I don't know where this trend started, but I am really grateful to a world filled with slaves to fashion and just a little depressed that they exist.
No comments:
Post a Comment