The room busted into laughter. What the fuck was this? An intense wave of heat moved through my body. The fire in my cheeks burned like I’d doused them in kimchi juice.
Charles the moderator said, “The language Jack uses makes Jill feel uncomfortable. What did you as listeners find problematic about his choice of words?”
Hands shot in the air.
“Yes? You, sir, in the red shirt?”
Red Shirt guy said, “Well, he calls that girl a ‘chick’ and—”
I cut in. “And you just called Jill a ‘girl.’ You’d never call Jack a ‘boy’ in the workplace.”
Someone muttered, “Daaaaamn, Jill. That’s savage.” All the dudes laughed.
Asher said, “I wouldn’t have used the word ‘rack.’”
Charles nodded. “Right-o! The choice of words was not appropriate for the office environment.” Right-o? Did people really talk like that anymore?
A guy in a Mariners jersey asked, “Should we use ‘chest’ instead?”
“You shouldn’t be talking about chests at all in the workplace,” I muttered. My fierce, crippling stare made him wince and look away.
Asher asked, “How about ‘jugs’?” He smirked at me as the room erupted in laughter again. Damn it! I wanted to kill him.
The instructor could sense my murderous intentions. He said, “Alrighty. Why don’t we move on to the second exercise? In this scenario, Jill is the night manager of the shipping department. One evening Jack approaches her to ask if he can leave early. Jill objects, and Jack offers a massage in exchange for permission to leave and—”
Asher yelled, “No way, I’d die or kill myself before I’d do that to Jill over there.” He pointed at me.
I blurted out, “I would taser Jack in the balls.”
“You can’t say ‘balls,’” Red Shirt guy said.
Crossing my arms, I replied, “I’d taser him in the genitals then.”
Charles said, “I love the openness of this discussion, and the suggestions of alternative word choices from our training participants. Bravo! But remember, the original problem to solve was ‘How should Jill handle Jack’s massage proposition?’ Accept or decline?”
Asher and I yelled in unison, “DECLINE!”
Our poor instructor. He had no idea how much Jack and Jill mutually despised each other.
“Let’s move into scenario three, shall we?” He cleared his throat. “Jill and Jack are hanging out in the break room and overhear a couple of employees picking on a new male employee. They overhear one of the employees call the man a ‘homo.’ What should they do?”
Mariners guy asked, “But what if he actually is a homo?”
The dude next to him said, “You can’t call him ‘homo,’ you fucking idiot.”
Charles barked, “Hey! Let’s refrain from name-calling. That is one of the lessons from this exercise.” He wiped his forehead with a monogrammed handkerchief and dabbed it above his lip.
Asher asked, “Could they call him something else? Like, ‘homosexual’?”
Red Shirt guy said, “We can’t say ‘fairy’ here. Or ‘homo,’ I guess. They say ‘poof’ in London, right? So ‘homosexual’ is the PC thing to say, right?” He looked at Charles, awaiting an answer.
Charles slumped his shoulders and exhaled loudly. “The best answer was to not pick on the employee in the first place, and if they chose to address him, they would do so by name, without mentioning the new employee’s sexual orientation.”
Red Shirt guy wasn’t finished. “Before we move on, can we talk about joking around about illegal stuff at work? Let’s say, Rohypnol. Let’s say someone hadn’t actually roofied anyone or anything but said to a few people that it would be funny to spike the coffee machine with it. Is that sexual harassment?”
Charles shook his head. “No. That’s not sexual harassment unless this person planned to drug the coffee for the purpose of sexual advancement in the office. But spiking anything with an illegal substance would definitely be a severe criminal activity. You know that, right?”
“Of course.” But the shocked look on Red Shirt guy’s face made me think otherwise. He began shaking his right leg, seemingly antsy to get out of training. Perhaps to go pour out the coffee.
“Where were we? Oh, right, the final scenario.” Charles skimmed the worksheet and nodded. “Here we are. Jill is nice but has a habit of hugging people when she thinks they are feeling down. Jack appreciates her intentions, but it makes him extremely uncomfortable, because she hugs a little too long. What should Jack do?”
Red Shirt dude elbowed his neighbor. “It depends on whether Jill is hot.” They fist-bumped. One of those annoying ones accompanied by sound