Awkward Office Moments: Round Two

Perhaps I'm anticipating Monday morning -- with the news of my sister's engagement poised to spread throughout our office, I am certain that the Awkward Office Moments will explode in ways I cannot even anticipate.

Yet.

As it stands, I ran into two rather awkward moments with, you guessed it -- the Office Matchmaker herself. I was lulled into a false sense of security over the past month. I thought maybe she'd turned her efforts elsewhere.

Alas. No one shall be spared. Or, rather, I shall not be spared until my contract is wrapped and tied with a big, shiny ribbon.

Scene One: Wednesday, August 19, 2009. Mid-morning. Miz Moffatt flips through another stack of mail, searching for the rebate stragglers. The OM stares and date-stamps invoices. Enter Finky, the office jokester and all-around cool guy. He spots the stack of mail and stops to chat.

Finky: HEY! It's MAAAAIL TIIIIIIIIIME! THE MAIL'S HERE!

Miz Moffatt: YEAH! You better believe it's mail time.

Finky: Aren't you gonna sing the song?

Miz Moffatt: ...The mail song?

Finky: Yeah, if it's mail time, you've got to sing the Mail Song. Geeze, [Miz Moffatt], it's company policy. Haven't you ever seen-

The OM: MALE song?? Oh come on, now, [Finky] -- is this some kind of song to help [Miz Moffatt] with the guys? Like a Siren's song or something?

Finky: *Confused/weirded out*.... What? What are you talking about?

The OM: Well you said "male time," and I thought you meant it was some kind of song to grab the attention of some cute guys. *Looks over to Miz Moffatt, trying to wink -- Miz Moffatt keeps her head down, an inborn defense against matchmakers everywhere*

Finky: *Laughing* No, it's the Mail Song. *Points at the mail in Miz Moffatt's hands* My sons are big on Blue's Clues right now and they've got this mail song they're always singing. I was making a reference to THAT. Why would I be telling her to sing a song for MALES?

The OM: Oh, HAHA! Look at me, my mind is just too creative -- mistaking "mail" for "male." I thought I was going to have to call HR on you, [Finky]. I thought you were being inappropriate, a ha ha!

Finky: *Motioning to me, trying to make light of the awkwardness* Yeah, well -- you shoulda heard what we were talkin' about yesterday!

Miz Moffatt: *Nods and insinuates she's on the inside of confidential, if somewhat racy, office conversation*

... Yeah, I would say The OM was certainly being "creative".... if by "creative" you mean "out of her mind" or "particularly challenged by the English language."

Scene Two: Friday, August 21, 2009. Early afternoon.

This next episode was a long one. I don't think I could do it justice in a script format. I got trapped at The OM's desk for about fifteen minutes while she told me about this "amazing show" she dedicates hours to on the weekend. It's this lame, Canadian-made show called Style By Jury. It's another one of your formulaic makeover series where they take unsuspecting, 'unattractive' specimens and transform them with traditional concepts of feminine/masculine accessories and 'life coaching.' Except, with this series, the style-challenged individual is subjected to the judgments of her peers, or the 'jury' in this case. The first round is always brutal, but the jury changes their minds after the makeover.

I've seen it. And I'm not particularly impressed with it.

Anyway -- The OM has now made it her mission to get me 'hooked' on the show by reciting previous episodes to me while I'm trying to print off cheque batches. She talked about one she'd seen last weekend where this brilliant, though socially-inept, scholar was scrubbed, polished, and remolded into some sort of fashionista. Why do I bother to point this out?

.... Oh, perhaps it had something to do with The OM's blunt and embarrassing assessment of butch women.

This scholar was 'butch,' according to The OM. She also referenced two previous episodes where 'butch' women were featured as the fashion abominations. 

But it was the language she used to describe them. 

The OM kept focusing on the fact that these women were just "SO unattractive, I mean, really butch" and how "they had closets with no skirts and no dresses and not even a pair of cute shoes or anything." 

I think what caught me the most off-guard was the idea that The OM felt this show was, and I quote, "giving these women a chance to express who they really are" -- she tried to argue that these women "were just so masculine and butch because they'd never really been given the chance to be feminine."

.... WHAT DA DONK?!  In retrospect, I think this is less of an awkward moment and more of a fumin' mad, irritated with traditional concepts of gender and the attempt to include me within heteronormative assessments of others, kind of moment. It was just the ease that The OM had with the idea that feminine woman = normal, butch woman = abnormal, must change to make acceptable. 

I'm struggling to find the words to explain my internal reaction to this. It was just another one of those moments when you realise how powerful the status quo IS and how rarely people within that space question such assumptions. It was eerie at best, I tell you.

Should be interesting to see what Monday brings.....