classless

K-Cop and I were working on a request for facilities yesterday. She asked me to come in while she did it, I guess because she forgot the short but detailed email I sent about the request (the one that said I had tried to log in to do the order myself but the system denied my account...the joys of temping). I mentioned this and she responded "Oh that's right. Well, if you do it with me then you'll know how to do it next time". I didn't bother untangling that little logic knot she had thrown out. I said "Ok" and sat down in a chair in her office.

Since I was involved, when she stopped (and she did, often) while writing what turned out to be about two sentences worth of instructions (i.e. "please do X to Y in manner Z such that Q will result. Thank you."), I offered wording. Toward the end she was at a loss as to how to conclude. "Do you think they'll understand?" she asked. "Yeah. But we could write something like 'Please call if further details or more information is needed'." She typed "Please call if any questions", quipping to me as she wrote it "Ha, it's not like anyone THERE is going to really READ it anyhow!" And then she laughed really hard and loud, and she laughed alone, which gave her statement an extra creepy and awkward effect.

Now, you should know this comes on the heels of her telling me that these folks are very nice and very accommodating, complete with a little vignette about how one guy went out of his way to do this and that, etc. on this one order. So to me, these sound like people who would take the time to read something. To me, it also sounds like K-Cop believes they are the kind of people who take the time. Then this leaves the source of her mirth, or at least the basis of her jest, to be the likelihood of someone in facilities READING, or at least READING at the level where they'd distinguish between our phrasings. Maybe she thought it comically likely that the facilities staff member would get to the embedded clause and lose all of their minimal intellectual function.

I don't know for sure that this was what she thought, but it or something like it seemed most plausible to me based on the context, the office culture, and what I know about her (K-Cop has a thing about grammar and punctuation (which she has fused together in her mind to be the same, a practice which is a serious pet peeve of mine) and makes vocal judgments about the intellect of people who commit cardinal "grammar" sins like misusing commas and...and well, I could go on but the point is that I fucking hate when someone gets all high and mighty about that shit, especially someone who doesn't know the difference between grammar, diction, usage, and punctuation).

What pisses me off is that she assumes I share her classist attitude because I have degrees. No, I'm not reaching there. She's remarked on it.