A new guy started last week. I presume he’s Rainman’s replacement. I have the responsibiliity of training him. He works my same schedule for the next few months.
I can tell already he’s not dumb. He’s a good learner. He asks good questions. When I tell him what to do or how to do something, he pretty much gets it without too much trouble. He gets the “why,” not just the “what.”
We’re gonna need to work on this personal interaction, though. I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing or what. I don’t know if it’s ignorant or presumptuous to think that. Hear me out.
There’s this guy that works in an adjacent area of production, so I see him around, but I don’t work with or near him. Within a month of my starting work, having only seen him randomly in the hallways or the breakroom and exchanging nothing more than brief polite greetings, he started pestering me to hang out with him. After a few polite turndowns, he didn’t get the hint and I had to tell him straight out that there was gonna be no hanging out between us.
This new guy is related to that guy. I hate when people start playing “get to know me” by asking me if I am married or have kids. Of course this is one of the first questions he asked, and then launched into the whole “How come you’re not married already?” Fuckin’ A, I hate that. I was just asking him where he used to work and how did he come to be here. Stuff like that.
I asked him what his friend told him about working here. He said his friend said it was okay. And then he turned toward me and got this huge grin on his face and said, “He said you are very nice. And very pretty.” And just stared at me with that huge grin. And didn’t say anything else. Um, okay. I just said, “Yeah? That’s nice.” and got up and walked over to the other side of the room.
At some other point in the evening I mentioned that I was tired and had only had a few hours of sleep.
“Why?”
“I was up all night.”
“What were you doing all night? Watching tv?”
“A little bit of tv, playing on the computer, having a snack, reading a book, I don’t know. Stuff.”
“Do you braid your hair?”
What? Where the fuck did that come from?
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t need to. I like my hair the way it is.”
“What do you mean you don’t need to?”
“Why would I need to?”
Time to get up and walk across the room again.
Right before our shift started I was in the office on the computer, checking e-mail. He popped his head in, and asked what I was doing. I said I was on the computer.
“What are you doing on the computer?”
“Checking my email.”
“Your personal email?”
“Yes.”
That’s a huge pet peeve of mine, anyway. None of your damn business what I’m doing on the computer.
One day we were trying to move a pallet full of parts out of a room, down a hallway, and into an elevator. He put the last parts on the pallet, and I grabbed the pallet jack and started pulling. It’s only fifty feet down the hall. He offered to pull the pallet. I said, “That’s okay, I got it.” We’re already rolling and halfway there. He offered again and started to reach for the handle. I said, “No, that’s cool.” He offered a third time and grabbed the handle (which I am holding onto), with that big fucking grin on his face.
At this point we’re standing in front of the elevator. I said, “Fine” and walked away. He was all, “Hold on! What?” I said, “I told you three times that I had it, and you insisted on taking it, so go ahead and take it.” I turned around again to walk away, and he grabbed my hand. BIG fucking no-no. You don’t fucking know me. Let go of my fucking hand.
I yanked my hand out of his. He said, “What, are you mad? I was just trying to be a gentleman.” I said, “Yeah, and I told you I had it and you tried to take it from me. I don’t need you to do shit for me. I was doing this just fine by myself before you got here.” He sort of apologized. I walked on down the stairs to wait for him to put the pallet in the elevator and send it on down.
And that was it.
Where are his sense of boundaries? This is why I wonder if it’s cultural, because generally his behavior is just like the other creepy guy’s and I know they’re both from Ghana. But maybe it’s just them.
It’s been over a week since the pallet-pulling incident and things have been pretty cool, though. I’m not worried about it. We just didn’t start off too well.
