Nonsense & Sensitivity

Just like the heroes of Jane Austen, the men who work in my office are a complex, highly strung, mesh of deep feelings, dark pasts and extreme irritability. And like Austen’s men, they are also pompous twats who benefit from a bizarre double standard that says that when a woman shows emotions, questions the status quo or protests about someone else’s behaviour, she’s being weak and girly. Toughen up, bitch. But men when do the same, they’re being mysterious, bold, deep and sensitive.

To give the kind of concrete example that will hopefully get me fired, given that everyone else who works in the office seems to spend their time eating cake and surfing the web looking for celebrity gossip: there are two guys, let’s call them C and D. D works right behind me – OK, works is too strong a word. He’s a hyperactive little monkey who spends the day bobbing from desk to desk talking rubbish. He’s also in charge of the stereo – which is right behind me, as I sit at my little desk in the corridor – and he supplies an endless stream of super-irritating music. With nerd commentary.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: it’s funny when Jack Black does it in High Fidelity. Yes, it is. That’s because Jack Black is funny – although he probably wouldn’t be, if he worked right behind you. D is a (drug-addled, I kinda hope, because it makes it less sad) ex-DJ who owns 30,000 records. Most of them are Kraut rock. Except the ones that are horrendous 80s compilations. And Ibiza techno. Yep, I think they’re alphabetised, too. Probably by genre. He’s under the mistaken impression that a) I give a crap about boy rock music and that b) I therefore want to talk to him about obscure Can albums while I’m trying to do my very dull job.

He also c) thinks that playing porn soundtracks – you know, the 70s ones, complete with groaning – is hilarious at 11 am. Nothing says happy, shiny morning like arriving at work to a chorus of orgasmic female moans over some dirty bass. ‘Cos you know girls just dig the bass. It goes along with his delightful conversational topics, such as are transpeople people; how he digs hypnoporn; why girls should shake their asses. It should be noted that the workplace is almost all female. OK, several of the women don’t speak English as a first language, but still – someone must have said something to him. At some point.

In fact, I know they must have done, because I have been told: don’t. You don’t get told not to do something unless it has happened before with dire consequences. D is – deep breath – sensitive. Ahh, so special, a porn-loving, personal space-ignoring, bangin’ techno-playing sensitive guy.

So I sit. And I say nothing. I drink a LOT of water so I have a reason to go downstairs to the washroom every half an hour. I try and ignore him when he talks to my back, pretend I didn’t hear his attempt at conversation, which always begins with some music reference I don’t get. I stare deep into my computer screen, willing it to become magically speedy and have, yknow, an operating system that works.

Because it doesn’t. And that’s the province of C. When he’s not hanging out behind my desk talking about obscure Can albums, he’s not in the office. But when he is, one is not supposed to approach him and say things like, “Can I upgrade to OS X? I hear there’s a Filemaker Pro specially made for it that will let me link to the internet from the program as I’m researching...” One is supposed to sidle up, flutter one’s girly eyelashes, and go “I know nothing about computers, but mine is making strange noises and, er, has completely stopped functioning. Could you please, please find some time in your busy schedule of being prickly and yet strangely intrusive to take a look and propose a wise solution?”

Yes, you’ve guessed it. He’s sensitive.

So here I am, working in a men’s encounter group where primal feelings of insecurity are expressed through clangy music and casual misogyny. Not only that, but I’m supposed to pretend that I’m dumber than I am about technology, while also putting my politics in a drawer (right under the industrial sized bar of dark chocolate I eat when no-one’s looking). Did any Austen heroine ever suffer more in having her spirit broken? I await the day when C approaches me and says, “Badly done, Pixie. Badly done,” after I have reduced D to tears by asking politely and not at all in a rage-filled, vinyl-stomping manner for a little less Kraft during werk.

And then surely my own wrongness will strike me, and I will lose all feeling in the remaining feminist nerves that I have and weepingly accept OS9’s proposal to sit, staring into the sunset, as the coffee cup cursor does wiggly steam and I wish it was real, so I could knock it over my thighs and show Iron John 1&2 just what noise sensitive makes.

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