The Vine: January 11, 2006
Hey Sars,
I work with this girl at my college in a part-time job. She eventually was hired full-time at another place of business, but still decided to work weekends at the college. She lives quite a ways from the college, and considering the gas is probably costing her more than what she’s getting paid a night I thought that was a tad bizarre. However, this girl is always up for something to do, so I attributed boredom as the reason for taking on both jobs. I also attributed boredom as the reason she continuously sent me text messages at random times during the day.
Except tonight she sent me a message that said she really liked me and was afraid to quit the part-time job because she thought we wouldn’t see each other anymore. I sent one back saying I liked her too and I was sure we could find time to hang out, but I didn’t want to be the reason she kept a position she didn’t want. We continue this for a few messages, then she says she’s afraid of freaking me out but she wanted to take me out again. We went out to lunch after classes a few weeks prior and she paid for my meal, saying it was repayment for a favor I did her, no big thing. But I think she thought of it as a date. I’ve been getting vibes that she is interested in me beyond a friendship and the messages she sent tonight reinforce that.
The problem is I don’t reciprocate the feeling. She is a really awesome girl, but I am not someone who goes after the ladies. I just don’t want to hurt her feelings, I still want to be her friend and I don’t want to make her feel weird around me. I know how hard it was for her to say something like that to me, and she did ask to keep it just between us. She kept apologizing and I told her not to, but I also tried to keep the responses friendly rather than suggestive. When she asked if she could take me out again I replied yes we could hang out again, rather than her taking me out. So we do have plans to get some food this weekend.
I feel like maybe I’m leading her on, but if I don’t hang out with her she’ll think I’m blowing her off because I’m weirded out. How would you handle a situation like this?
Sincerely,
I get more offers from awesome women than I do awesome men
Dear Off,
Forget that she’s a girl; forget that whole aspect of it. The salient point is that she wants one thing from hanging out with you, and you want another. She’s hanging out with you hoping you’ll change your mind about the level of your investment; you’re hanging out with her because you don’t want to hurt her feelings. That…doesn’t sound like a fun evening with a friend to me. That sounds awkward.
It’s nice of you to want to avoid making her uncomfortable, but that horse is out of the barn. She has feelings for you that you don’t reciprocate, to the point where she kept a job she didn’t need in order to keep spending time with you — and after she confessed this to you, and you told her you didn’t share her feelings, she still wants to hang out? I’ve said before that, once one person develops emotions beyond friendship, that it’s not really a friendship anymore, and usually, I’m saying it to the person with the feelings, but it applies to the object of the feelings, too: it’s not just a friendship now. She likes you That Way, and you don’t feel the same, and continuing to hang out with her because you don’t want her to think you’re weirded out…I mean, you are a little weirded out, no? Not because she’s a girl, but because she’s into you, and how do you get past that when you aren’t into her in response. Yeah, she’ll be all “oh, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,” and I know you still want to be friends with her, but…you know? It’s not that simple.
You can grab a meal and see how it goes, but understand, at this point she may just be giving lip service to the whole “friends” concept; she’ll know it’s no go, intellectually, but emotionally, she’s still got hope on some level. And in order to move past that, you might have to stop hanging out with her for a while, until you’re both on the same page.
Whether it’s a guy or a girl who likes you at a level you just kind of aren’t at, you want to try to do the kind thing, the thing that acknowledges the reality. Unfortunately, the reality is that she took a risk in telling you how she felt, and good for her for doing it, but you aren’t into it, and everyone involved needs to recognize that.
Hi Sars,
Okay, my patience has reached its end. Once again a co-worker has used the
phrase “on short notice” in an email, and I believe he keeps using it
incorrectly. He wrote to me, “Can you make an invoice on short notice?”
To my ears, this sounds wrong and I think he means to say something like
“as soon as possible,” but thinks “on short notice” can be used
interchangeably for “ASAP.” Granted, the guy is not a native English
speaker, but this phrase started popping up in his speech a couple of
months ago and now I’ve been hearing other non-native-English-speaking
co-workers saying it as well, which has been driving me nuts.
I thought I’d check it with you before I try to carefully point out his
incorrect usage. From answers.com it give the definition: “With little
advance warning or time to prepare, as in ‘They told us to be ready to
move out on short notice.'” That example makes sense to me, but I can’t
quite pinpoint why that sentence works, but my co-worker’s doesn’t.
Thanks for your insight,
Sure, I’ll do it on short notice if that’s what you’re giving me
Dear Short,
He’s not a native speaker, so proceed with caution — but if you don’t know exactly what he means by “on short notice,” in context, you can politely tell him so: “Sure, I can do that for you ‘on short notice’ — but I’m concerned that you mean ‘right away,’ which is sort of different, and I just want to make sure we’re talking about the same time frame.” Because he thinks he’s asking you to do something quickly, but what he’s really asking is whether you can do something with no warning or prep — not quite the same thing.
I wouldn’t give him the link to answers.com, or be like, “You know you’re using that phrase wrong — right?” Emphasize that you’re looking for a clarification, while gently giving one at the same time.
If you do know what he means, more or less, you could also just…leave it. When my car sensei told me, “Is problem with fuel injector,” yes, it annoyed me — because it sounded expensive, not because he skipped the definite articles.
Dear Sars,
Is that grammatical construct of the devil, the subjunctive, required
in this sentence?
“I was offered an opportunity, but I needed to find out if it was/were feasible.”
It looks like it should require the subjunctive, but it doesn’t sound
right to me. Thanks.
Hey, Joan Osborne! It’s “What if God Were One of Us”
Dear Joan,
I don’t think it’s required; it could go either way. The action takes place in the past, so whether you use the subjunctive in the second clause depends on whether you’re talking about the actual feasibility, or the potential feasibility.
Since presumably you now know, here in the present, whether the opportunity turned out to be feasible, I think “was” is fine. You’re at your leisure.
Hi, Sars.
I’m currently a sophomore in college, and am thinking about
taking a few semesters off.
I’m at my second school in two years, and I’ve gradually
become convinced that college just isn’t right for me (for
now, anyway). And it’s not that I don’t have the requisite
intellectual curiosity or anything; it’s just that I keep
feeling as if the actual learning part is beside the point
here — like, instead of focusing on the material, the
professors just keep discussing how to effectively study for
the test, or what we should write about in the essay, or
rapidly plowing through some notes that basically summarize
what the book says. I’m not academically stimulated here,
and I’m fed up with worrying about core curriculum and what
classes I have to take and what semester I need to take
them. I’m tired of feeling like knowledge is only the means
to an end (my GPA, a job, et cetera). I’m tired of all the stress
that seems so embedded in scholarship.
What I would really like to do is just work and support
myself for a while, if only to prove to myself that I can.
I already work outside of school at a gas station about 35
hours a week, and I find myself feeling much more rewarded
by the work I’m doing there than by the work I’m doing at
school. And I’ve talked to some of the older people in my
classes who’ve taken time off, and they seem much more
dedicated to school work now that they’re paying for it
themselves.
Also, I’ve lived in one state my entire life, and I think it
might be kind of cool to see if I couldn’t get a job in a
moderately-sized (and cheap!) city far away from home, and
just sort of have a life that doesn’t feel so intrinsically
tied to my parents, and what they want for me.
I’ve already started visiting headhunter websites, and
submitting my resume to various places, and checking median
apartment prices in various cities.
Am I foolish to think this could work? And even if it can
work, am I foolish to take time off from school in the first
place, when if I could just stick it out for two more years,
I could have the damn degree and go wherever I want with my
parents’ blessing? And, most importantly, how much harder
is it to find work without a degree than with one? I know
you’re probably not the best person to be asking this, since
your essays make it sound like you finished school before
you had a full time job…but as someone who’s been in the
work force, what is your take on the importance of having a
degree if all you really need is a simple little desk job (I
can answer phones! I can file! I can type really fast!) that
pays enough to support one person who’s pretty good at
living frugally? And bear in mind that my work experience
isn’t exactly stellar: I work very hard at my gas station
job, but it’s still just a gas station job. And how
realistic am I about expecting a semi-smooth transition from
a (wretched) college town to a city I’ve never lived in
where I have no contacts? And does this whole letter smack
of late-blooming middle class teen rebellion to you?
And…just as a final question, in case I haven’t asked you
enough, what do you think it takes to be intelligent and
educated? I used to think it meant having a degree, but now
I’m kind of skeptical. I want to be an educated person, and
I read a lot, but I have this nagging feeling that if I
don’t finish with college right away, I’m always going to
feel intellectually inferior. I’ve had this weird notion
since I was young that you need a degree in something to be
a complete person.
Thanks for your time,
If I gave better head, I’d just go ahead and be a whore
Dear The Benefits Aren’t So Hot In That Sector,
It depends on what you mean by “work.” Yeah, it can “work” — people for whom college isn’t an option do it every day, find jobs, get apartments, do what needs doing to make ends meet. But if you mean “work” in the sense of “put me further ahead in life than finishing college,” well, that depends, too, on what you want to do with your life and on how much of that you’ve got figured out.
For certain careers, yes, you do need to finish school and deal with the academic system, but for others, you don’t, not really. I loved college, I finished in four years, it had nothing to do with what I do now, really — it didn’t help me with connections or training, so much. I don’t regret doing it the way I did at all, but I also know plenty of people who took six years to finish, or who never bothered finishing, and worked instead, figuring out where they wanted to go and how they could get there, and it worked out fine for them. What people who hire for desk jobs want is experience…in desk jobs. They want you to answer the phone and type. You don’t learn that in English 101, so you’ll probably be fine if you have the skills they need.
I don’t know what to tell you in terms of the transition to a different town. You don’t know anyone there, and you won’t have an insta-peer group the way you do in college, and every city has its quirks and its things you have to learn to make it feel like home. Some people find that exhilarating; other people find it exhausting. Sometimes it’s both. You won’t really know until you get there.
I think what you want here is…guarantees. You want to be told what to do, or at least whether what you want to do is Okay. I can’t really do that for you, but I can tell you that, if you do take the time off from school and try it a different way, that’s a big step towards learning to trust your instincts, and to follow through on getting what you think you need. It’s part of becoming a grown-up, and it’s something college doesn’t necessarily teach everyone. I think a liberal arts education has value, because it trains you to think critically about what you read and learn, and to discuss it in the same framework as others with the same academic background; for example, not knowing what authorial intrusion means doesn’t make anyone dumb or uneducated, but if you care about books and stories and storytelling in the culture, having the vocabulary is a crucial tool. It gives you assessment tools that you might not even realize you’ve absorbed until years later.
But it doesn’t make you a complete person, a college education, and if it’s not what you need right now, you can come back to it — or not. There’s really no way to get that perspective except by, you know, going out and getting it, and you can always give the time off a try and then change your mind if it’s not working for you.
But I can’t give you guarantees or predictions, I’m afraid. You just have to see how things go.
Hi Sars,
Something has been bugging me and I would like some perspective.
About a year ago, a co-worker pulled me aside and told me that my temper made him not want to work with me. I was appalled at his perception of me and very embarrassed so, I started watching what I say when I’m upset, and I apologized profusely. Eventually he and I became good friends, with that temper thing out of the way.
Lately, another co-worker mentioned my temper. The thing is? I’ve done my best to shut my mouth and really (and I mean, really) haven’t said anything that would necessitate an apology from me (and I’m quick with the apologies and try to modify my behavior). The only thing that shows my anger is my face. It doesn’t explode or anything (funny visual) but I go very pale and I bite my lip. I avoid eye contact and speak very carefully and briefly when I’m upset. So, what do you recommend? I know my temper is no longer going to result in stupid things being said, but I don’t know how to monitor my facial reactions.
Should I be that concerned over a random remark that guy made and is it time to start hiding my honest reactions entirely?
Thank you,
I’m not the Hulk anymore
Dear Hulk,
It occurs to me that the issue isn’t whether you’re screaming and throwing chairs in the office; it’s how often you get angry, even if it’s a fairly subtle manifestation. I get the sense, from your fairly complete description of how you act when you’re upset, that it’s not something that necessarily happens infrequently.
Which is fine; work can be upsetting. But your co-workers may not be concerned with how you lose your temper so much as that it seems to happen more often than they’re comfortable with. I for one would rather work with someone who blows up on occasion than with someone who gets angry more often but less spectacularly — but I don’t know for a fact that this is the issue, it’s just a theory based on a sense I’m getting from your letter, that there’s enough going pale and lip-biting happening in meetings that your co-workers feel like you require special handling.
If I were you, I would ask for a meeting with your direct superior; say you’re looking for ways to increase your productivity (or whatever Office Space-y spin you want to give it), and ask if s/he thinks things get to you too much, or in a negative way. You can think about how to phrase it so you’re not kind of like, “Do I have an anger-management problem?” But it might be helpful to get a boss’s perspective.
There are also classes that can help you control certain physical anger reactions — your pulse, your breathing — and train you to react more evenly, expressing your anger or disagreement without offending anyone or losing control. If you’re looking at your lap and speaking in clipped sentences, that’s not effective management of the emotion — except in terms of drawing attention to it. So, browse around online and see if there’s a book or a tape or a class you can use to fine-tune your reactions.
Tags: boys (and girls) grammar workplace
