Mother: I am proud, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have been prouder if you had gotten accepted to school in Florida.
Me: Oy. Great talking to you, Ma. Always love hearing first thing in the morning about all the things I’m doing wrong.
That conversation made me late. The muffin and coffee I stopped to pick up made me later. Not that it matters. Organizational Behavior is a joke anyway, but not in a ha-ha kind of way. Professor Matthews is supposed to be a bastard.
When I open the door, he’s already started the class. I climb up the auditorium stairs and slip into the seat beside Kimmy in the fifth row. She’s wearing an adorable back-to-school outfit: a short brown corduroy skirt, a tight white turtleneck and knee-high brown suede boots. Schoolgirl sexy.
The classroom has stadium seating, so everyone faces the professor in the middle, the professor who looks like an angry Morgan Freeman and is glaring at me from behind his desk. Now might not be the best time to take out my muffin.
“As I was saying, my second pet peeve, after students who come in late-” he looks at me as he enunciates “-are students who eat in class. You cannot eat and concentrate at the same time. If you must, coffee and water are acceptable beverages, but do not come to class half-asleep. I am not an alarm clock. By the time you are seated in your chairs, I demand that you be well rested and prepared to work.”
No muffin?
His eyes dissect the room. “Now that we’ve gotten my pet peeves out of the way, welcome to Organizational Behavior. I am now passing out the class syllabus and assignment sheet. Note the required reading. And required does not mean optional. It means mandatory. My TA Ronald-wave hello, Ronald-” Ronald waves hello “-will be marking you on your participation. Every time you raise your hand, you’ll get a tick beside your name. The number of ticks you have will be factored into your final grade at the end of the semester. Is that clear?”
We nod. I almost shake my head to see what he would do, but decide this is not in my best interests. He’s exhibiting a classic case of small penis syndrome. Which is surprising since I thought that only Jewish guys like me suffered from that affliction. Since no one cares about organizing their behavior, he’s obviously trying to scare us.
My stomach grumbles. Loudly. I want that muffin.
“Now, in this classroom, I will teach you theories…”
Maybe if I reach my hand into the paper bag very slowly, then rip the muffin into pieces, he won’t notice. I carefully drop my arm to the floor and attempt to insert it inside the bag.
Crinkle! Snap!
Small Penis stares at me. I retreat, and he continues yammering. “You will work in groups to choose the best type of organizational structure. For instance, I will give you a case study about the organization Procter and Gamble. Then I will give you three to five questions you must answer in a few paragraphs. The questions might be, for example, What organizational structure would best suit P and G’s current situation and why? Is that clear?”
We nod. My stomach grumbles, again. Kimmy hears and dry giggles.
“Very well. First I will do a roll call, and then, as it states on your syllabus, I will begin by teaching group dynamics.”
Fuck it. In one swoop, I reach into the bag, rip off the muffin top and slam it into my mouth.
The bell rings, and I immediately unwrap the rest of my muffin and eat it. “I guess the rumors are true-this class is bogus.”
Kimmy looks like she might cry. “What are you talking about? Who said it’s going to be bogus?”
“The second-years.”
“Are those the second-year girls I saw you flirting with yesterday?”
I give what I hope is a mischievous smile, while trying to keep my mouth closed so as not to reveal chewed muffin. “Darlin’, are you accusing me of cheating on you? I’m shocked and bewildered.” I’m kidding, of course. I’ve been trying to get her alone all weekend, but she keeps coming up with excuses. I’m not giving up. Chasing Kimmy might be my only entertainment all year.
She shushes me with her hand. “That class didn’t seem like such a joke.”
“Trust me. It is.”
She looks confused. “But…but I still don’t understand what organizational behavior is.”
“It’s psychology for business people. Different personality types. The best way to structure your business. That kind of stuff. You worked for a leasing company, right?”
She fiddles with her turtleneck as if it’s choking her. “How’d you know that?”
“Because you said it on Tuesday.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.”
“How many vice presidents were there?”
“Um…” She shakes her head. “None.”
“Okay, then who was the boss?”
She blushes. “My dad.”
Ah. “Who worked under your dad?”
“There was a finance manager, collections manager, accounting manager, office manager…”
“What did you do?”
“I worked for collections.”
Sexy. “Really? You demanded people pay you? Did you threaten physical harm?”
“No, I called them.”
I can see her in a tight black leather dress, black stiletto boots and a gun harnessed to the inside of her thigh. I’ll have to save that image for later. “Were all your dad’s leases in Arizona?”
“No, he does leases all over the country.”
“So let’s say we take your company and restructure it. You have five managers, but now they’re arranged geographically, each one overseeing an area. West Coast, East Coast, the central states, the South, and the Southwest. Would this structure better serve the company?”
“Oh,” she says slowly. “I get it. So we’re going to learn theories that we can apply to answer that question?”
“Right.”
She nods. “I was a Philosophy major in college. We learned theories and tried to apply them. This I can do.”
I stand up and stretch. “Glad to be of service.”
“How do you know all that? Did you study business in college?”
My mother wishes. “No, I did a liberal arts degree. But I read a lot.”
We have a ten-minute break until the next class, which is in this same room. All the classes we have today are in the same room. I feel like we’re back in grade school. The teachers come to us instead of us going to them.
“I’m going to get a coffee,” Kimmy says, standing up. “Want anything?”
“I’m okay, thanks.”
Professor Douglas arrives while Kimmy is still out. With his dark glasses, large bald spot and five-foot-five skinny frame, he looks more like Woody Allen than a professor. Short legs dangling, he sits on the front of his desk and sips his coffee.
“Mmm,” he says. “They have a new flavor this year, hazelnut latte. I highly recommend it to anyone like me who suffers from severe caffeine addiction.”
His audience laughs.
“So am I your first class today?” he asks.
“No,” says the tall blonde in the front row. “We had Professor Matthews first.”
He smirks. “Don’t worry about him. His bark is worse than his bite. Although I wouldn’t get too close.”
Ah, the wanna-be comedian.
“He barked pretty loudly,” another student adds.
Professor Douglas laughs a loud, room-filling laugh. “Yes, he does. And he never erases the board. Look at that,” he says, and points to the dry board. “You’d think professors would learn to clean up after themselves.”
Layla jumps up. “I’ll do it.”
Oy. What a suck-up.
“No worries,” he says. “I got it.”
Ah, and he isn’t afraid of manual labor. What more could one want in a professor?
Kimmy walks through the door, coffee in hand, Russ beside her. She laughs at something he’s saying.
I feel a sinking sensation in my stomach. I shouldn’t be jealous. Russ has a girlfriend. He isn’t making a move on my dream girl.
“Good morning,” Douglas says to them.
“Morning,” Kimmy says. Did she just stick her chest out?