November 16, 2005
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Today at work we had a 4 hour class on diversity. I, of course, was
very excited about this class and found it very interesting. No, I’m
not being sarcastic, I really did. The first little exercise involved 3
volunteers (me being one of them) to leave the room while the others
(there were a total of 28 people in this class) formed groups. The
point was to exclude the 3 of us from the groups. We could do anything
to try to get into these groups as long as we did not use profanity or
use too much touching. We walked in and they were separated into 3 or 4
groups. They were all standing in several circles with their arms
connected talking to each other. My idea was to take a box of Crayola
Markers and try to bribe our way into the groups because, hey, who
doesn’t like markers. Plan B was to give them money. Neither worked. I
moved onto another group where I got all sorts of loud and obnoxious.
Yeah, imagine me, obnoxious. I was standing on a chair saying all sorts
of shit, offering money, markers and mints to get into the group. I had
one girl laughing so hard, she was practically in tears and very close
to cracking. I swear if I had another 30 seconds, we would have been
in. Instead, the teacher lady person put a hault to this little fun
charade.Another exercise involved each table representing a different
generation (the pre-baby boomers, the baby boomers, gen X and gen Y);
each table had to list how that specific generation views itself and
how others view that generation. We had the pre-baby boomer generation,
which was my parents generation. I found out a lot of interesting
stuff. For example, I never thought that I was much like my parents.
But, some of the characteristics of their generation I see in myself.
Like, hardworking (yes, I do work hard………I know some of you might
not believe that) and being loyal. Of course, I also have some traits
of the baby boomers, which is the influence of my sister, who is a
boomer, on me. Ironically enough, I didn’t see all that much of Gen X
in me. X-ers are also known as the me generation and don’t really have
an interest in politics or world affairs, which is pretty much the
opposite of me. It was also interesting to see how much alike Gen Y and
the baby boomer generations are, at least in the views (and they were
pretty accurate, based on everything I have read) of the people in this
class. The whole class was very interesting, I wish it were longer.I went shopping for Friends Thanksgiving tonight. As usual, Dave and I
are going all out (some would say we are crazy) for this. After all,
its only once a year. Why not go all out and celebrate life, friends,
and family. Then again, our friends pretty much celebrate every holiday
with each other. Sure, we don’t actually spend the holiday together,
but when I think about it, we pretty much cover every holiday. We get
together on all the summer holidays. We have a Halloween party. We have
Thanksgiving the week before the real Thanksgiving. We have a Christmas
party. We usually have New Years together. Damn, my friends kick
fucking ass!!!
