Last week, I bumped into an acquaintance I hadn’t seen since the pandemic shutdowns began. “I’m lucky,” she said. “I can work from home.” But, she fretted, “I’m losing my social skills.”
Only partially in jest, I reassured her that if she can talk to someone like me, she still has social skills. I can, however, understand her anxiety: So much of her work depends on social interaction which, as she points out, “isn’t the same on Zoom.”
I had a job like that, too. My contract ended during a couple of months into the pandemic, and my now-former employer decided not to keep me on. While there are some things I miss—not the least of which is the paycheck—there is much to which I hope not to return.
My workplace was an academic environment—in a humanities department, to be exact. I am a member of a minority group and have a disability that is not readily visible—and, truth be told, I’ve learned to navigate mainly because, for most of my life, I didn’t have a name for it or anybody who would have understood it. Growing up, I simply got used to being scolded for not “paying attention” or “being attentive to others.” When I applied for the job, however, I didn’t declare my disability or my minority status—which, like my disability, isn’t noticed by most people who pass me on the street: I am transgender.
I didn’t disclose those details about myself because I didn’t want to be labeled as an “affirmative action baby.’’ Even in the academic world, many—including supposedly “liberal” and “enlightened” faculty members and administrators-- seethe with resentment, however veiled, toward anyone whom they believe to have “jumped the line.” Never mind that others with lesser credentials were hired and promoted ahead of me: The same folks who lecture others about their “implicit biases” act as if, deep down, they don’t think “normal” people—which is to say, those like themselves—are worthy of the rewards of their work.
What I’ve said in my previous paragraph doesn’t apply, for the most part, to students. If they were upset with me, it was a result of my “giving too much work” or “grading too hard.” Once I sat with them and explained, in detail, why they got the grades they did—and, when time and the situation allowed, how they could improve their grades or simply make up lost ground—they realized that I was really on their side. Also, if they knew of my minority or disability status, they realized that because I had empathy for them in their struggles (I grew up parents who worked overtime to send me to Catholic school) and was therefore trying to ready them for the challenges they would face.
On the other hand, administrators and some faculty members could recite the institution’s non-discrimination and anti-violence policies forward, sideways and backwards, in their sleep—yet accused me of “exaggerating,” “whining” or simply lying when I reported two attempted assaults (one of them sexual), being pushed down a flight of stairs, a bathroom door jimmied open as I sat in a toilet stall and a faculty member who stood and laughed at me when I tripped and fell. The director of security implied that my problems were a result of my “presentation”—and denied making such an insinuation when I was before the disciplinary board for an accusation—false—that I “threatened” another faculty member. (I asked him a question he didn’t like.)
Through everything, I treated everyone—including those who bullied and harassed me—with deferential politeness. I said “Good morning” to those who, the day before, were mocking my speech and appearance. (I actually stumbled into some of their conversations and heard about others from a colleague who, like me, was mocked and condescended to because she came from the wrong side of the tracks and had disabilities.) I smiled to the professor who laughed at me when I fell and the one who pushed me. I thanked the deputy chair and dean for the chance to present my side of the story—which they ignored—when I was falsely accused and brought up on “anonymous” complaints. Call me a cynic, but I think—with reason--at least some of those “anonymous” complaints were made up by the deputy and dean themselves.
Knowing full well that I was being talked and schemed about behind my back, and on occasion to my face, I gave everyone the benefit of the doubt and, until almost the end of my time at the college, told myself that I could overcome all of the trials with gentleness, grace and, sometimes, a sense of humor. That, of course, is exactly what the credentialed schemers and bullies wanted me to believe: I was wrong for calling them out on their behavior because it hurt their feelings and damaged the reputation they imagined themselves and the college to have. And not smiling, not affirming whatever they said, was labelled “insubordination.”
Although I’m struggling to get by, I am happy to be away from all of that. I have lost twenty pounds and as many points from my blood pressure. I rarely talk to anybody when I don’t have to, and when I smile or say nice things, I am not employing survival mechanisms: I am giving my good will, and responding to the same, in friends, family members and people I encounter every day: store clerks, health care professionals and such. I appreciate, not only what they do for me, but simply for being who and what they are. I don’t have to perform any of the behaviors that, I now realize, did not serve me on my old job.
In brief, I can say with confidence that whatever struggles I face now, I take more pride in the ways I deal with them and what people see in me. As trite as this may sound, I simply prefer the person I’m becoming, whatever that may be, to what I was. I am leaving some of that personage behind, including the social skills I performed. I hope I don’t go back—to them, to that place, to the person who worked there. I don’t want my old social skills back.