An unpleasant encounter

I wear many hats. In a couple of them, I teach various subjects in several local institutions. Recently, I was finishing up my semester work, which means copying my tests and other in-class exercises for the permanent file of that semester. I also have several forms to include, plus a copy of my gradebook. I prefer to keep my gradebook on my laptop; that way, I know I’m not going to leave it on the roof of my car as I go zipping off to the next institution! 

I needed to print out my gradebook, so, thumbdrive in hand, I went to a computer room at this institution. Both students and faculty use the computers  in the room and there is a single networked printer. I entered; it was late afternoon and there was a single student in the room, doing some research. She was studying for an associate’s degree in medical assisting; I knew this from her scrubs. She didn’t look pleased as I entered and sat down at a computer down the row from her; she may even have glowered at me. I pulled up my file and made some last minute formatting changes to it, then attempted to print the file. I say attempted, because only a single page came out of the printer, not the two that I expected after my formatting changes. 

I went back to my computer and attempted to print the second page, alone. The printer made an unpleasant crunching sound and nothing emerged. I tend to talk to myself and this was no exception, saying, “Oh, no! It’s jammed!” I guess the woman thought that I was talking to her, as she responded. 

Her voice had an edge of attitude as she said, somewhat aggressively, “It was working just fine a minute ago.” 

I went to the printer; its trouble lights were blinking. I opened its compartments, attempting to see where the jam was located. A crumpled piece of paper stuck out slightly from the rollers inside the paper drawer, on the underside of the printer. I started to ease it out but, towards the end of the sheet, I heard a tearing sound.  When I got the piece of paper out, it was missing a small chunk in the middle of the sheet. I knew that the printer would continue to jam until the piece was removed but I didn’t have the time to do it. I also knew that the printer queue had my confidential gradebook in it! I shut off the printer to disrupt the queue and went back to the computer, to cancel the print job. I told the woman that there was still a small piece of paper inside the printer. She told me again, officiously, that the printer had been working just fine. 

I went to the office to report the problem. The office manager was not at her desk but I ran into my superior, whom I informed about the problem. I also gave her the sheet with the bite out of it, so she would know how much paper was left behind.

I went upstairs, to the prep room, to do my printing. The printer located there had several lights already blinking, before I did anything. I looked up the manual for the printer on the internet and used it to interpret the lights. It was completely out of toner and it refused to print. I trapsed back downstairs (I actually used the elevator). On the first floor, the office manager was back, so I told her about the toner. She said that she had tried out the first printer and it was now working, so back I went to the original room. The woman was still there; she immediately informed me in a pugnacious tone that I should not have left with the printer turned off and that it worked ,”just fine.” 

Back to my original computer station, I plugged in my trusty thunbdrive and pulled up the page, then, once again, attempted to print it. The printer made a loud crunching sound and, once again, all of the trouble lights started blinking. I scampered back to the office and quickly reported the problem. Back in the lab, I again opened the printer’s compartments. The crumpled paper was in the same place. I managed to extract this one fully intact, shut off the printer to purge its queue, and turned it back on. As I worked, the woman talked continuously, telling me that I should keep my hands off of it; that I should tell the front office that it was not working. I initially told her that I had reported it already but, as she continued to tell me what to do, I finally told her that I was a faculty member. She said that this didn’t matter, that I shouldn’t have left the printer shut off after the first failure and that it “worked fine” before me. That might have been true, but it was certainly jammed, now, and nothing that I was doing was going to jam it further!

After I removed the paper, I went back to my workstation to close my file and purge the print job. She continued to harangue me; I finally told her that I was an engineer and probably knew more about printers than the office manager – not polite but probably true. She got incensed at this comment. Her tone, which had not been polite from the start, was now extremely confrontational and rude. She said that if I was an engineer, I should have been able to fix the printer, and that if I was an engineer, why was I working there?

I again told her that I was a faculty member and asked her for her name. She refused to give it and grew angrier. I told her that part of her program was to learn how to behave in an office situation and that her behavior was very rude and inappropriate. She got even angrier and I started to have some concern that she might become physical, not for my own safety (I’ve had some training in martial arts) but on general principles – it was utterly absurd that a would-be medical professional would take such an offensive position with anyone! From the beginning, she seemed to want to put me in a subordinate position to her and what seemed to make her angriest was that I was not kowtowing to her. I finished closing the program, got permission from the computer to remove my thumbdrive, took it out, packed my belongings, and left the room.   

I went back to the office and found my superior and gave her a brief synopsis of the events. I didn’t tell her about my final concerns as nothing physical had happened. She went in to talk to the student. I went to another computer lab (across the hall) and was able to hear most of the student’s description of what happened as I was finally able to print out the gradebook. What surprised me most was that she only mildly toned down her attitude. Still, it was a very different interaction; my superior was also a middle-aged black woman and is well-known to all of the students so this woman had a somewhat milder tone with her than with me. According the student, everything wrong with the printer was my own fault for my not trying to get any help from the office. She either did not notice my repeated trips to the office or didn’t want to remember them.

As I left the building, my superior and the person in charge of the room (she, also, had been out of the room for my unpleasant encounter) were both wrestling with the printer, trying to find the scrap in the print path. I left them to it; the student was still there and I didn’t want to inflame anything.  My main concern was that I had forgotten to purge the print job, so I told my superior about it and she assured me that she would take care of it.

I can’t say for certain, but I suspect this unpleasant interaction was racially based. I think the student didn’t like me at first glance simply because I’m white. She started out very unfriendly and got worse as time went on. My interpretation is that her own insecurities about race made her want to put me in my place at the outset and I wasn’t cooperating or even responding in what she considered a predictable manner, so she got more and more angry.

The funny thing is, for me, it’s over, so I will be even less predictable at any future encounter. I won’t know her when I see her because of my face-blindness! I’ll be cheerful and polite to her (again) because I won’t be able to differentiate between her and any other middle-aged black woman; I may be able to recognize her from her voice but I might not. I’m sure she’ll be unnerved. But it isn’t my problem!

I’m afraid that, after graduation, this student is going to get a job in a doctor’s office where she will have to deal with white people as patients, co-workers, and/or superiors. If she really does have racial issues, she’s going to cop another attitude at an inappropriate time and get fired for it. Or maybe she was just having a rough day, today, and took it out on the stranger (me). But I’m not sure which is worse – if she a racist or just nasty to random strangers.  In either case, I don’t want her to ever have anything to do with my medical care. 

  

I’ve certainly had times when I felt that the way that I was being treated was based on my appearance (try going into an upscale women’s clothing store dressed in cheap jeans and a T-shirt!), even had times when I thought that my treatment was racially based (watch the difference in bargaining in a Mexican market with gringo customers versus local customers for the same objects), but this is the first time I’ve had someone, apparently, take offense at my existence solely on the basis of my skin color. It’s very disturbing, in this day and age.