Okay, I’ll take a short break from talking about things that could potentially be useful to others new to Los Angeles and briefly recount a rather terrifying personal experience that I had on Sunday. The reasons why I talk about it here are: a) This is, after all, a blog about being lonely in Los Angeles and people can sometimes have such a dearth of a local support system in LA that they can only talk about personal horror stories on their newly created blog; b) The incident has intense psychological implications at several levels and the attitude of political correctness we are sometimes forced to assume about certain things can severely scar us inside. Yes, even when we are complete adults; and c) Others may have had similar experiences in this city, where people are notoriously cavalier about insanity in all sizes, shapes and forms. But insanity is, when you get right down to it, a terrifying phenomenon.
I work at this place that has lots of visitors each day. They can just walk in and look at stuff on display. Entry is free. All are welcome. My job, however, entails keeping people who just sauntered in without having to pay or show an ID or go through any screening, in general, from getting too close to the items on display. How hard can that be, you ask. Pretty hard. And, in certain cases, quite traumatizing. For the person doing this job, that is.
On this particular Sunday evening, there was an event in progress. The venue was crammed chock full of visitors. People were drinking and having a good time. Certain people in the crowd, however, were making rapid strides towards a state of insanity or maybe their insanity was making use of this occasion to manifest itself.
There was this ‘Mom’ with her friend, little son and frisky dog, who walked in around 7.20pm, when I had already been at my job, on my feet, for almost nine hours, with a couple of breaks of course. It was the child holding the leash and the group was a disaster waiting to happen in terms of close contact with items on display. As my training dictated, I told Mom to ‘please hold her child’s hand’. She flipped her lid at this humble request and turned on me. Her face an ugly sneer, she demanded,
“Do you have kids?”
My answer should have been “Yes, seven.”
But not being a good liar and totally failing to comprehend the relevance of the question to the current situation, all I could say was, “No”.
Her sneer grew more pronounced as she looked at me as if I was the world’s biggest evil because I didn’t have what she had. Apparently, it disqualified me immediately from any further interaction with her and I didn’t really want one, of course.
But things didn’t end there. When I saw her entourage again on the premises, her child running amok in the midst of the crowd – a missing child situation waiting to happen – I requested her again ‘to please hold her child’s hand’.
This tipped some fine balance within her.
She went after my blood. She wanted to complain about me. She yelled at me to tell her my name. She tried to take a picture of me so she could show it to the higher ups and lodge the complaint. When her menacing face came within inches of mine, I told her she could be seen on surveillance cameras on the premises. It made no difference. When she looked like she might physically attack me, I freaked out – fight or flight syndrome took over – and I ran. Straight to the admin office. I also made the mistake, while trying to run to ‘safety’, of saying to my supervisor on my radio that I was being chased by a visitor and she seemed a ‘little crazy’.
Bingo, I had uttered the unutterable. I had called a very drunk and clearly mentally unstable person ‘crazy’ and it is a word they are trying hard to erase from the lexicon of radio communication for this organization. Even the code 51-50, signifying a mentally unstable person, has been declared defunct by this supervisor as far as radio communication at my employment level is concerned.
They asked me to tell them what happened. Of course. But I could tell my supervisor did not believe me. Nor did she care. She already had her ideas in place. After about 15 minutes of my standing in that office, shaking like a leaf, she asked me reluctantly if I wanted to sit. I declined.
During my next two shifts, I realized the higher ups were passing on the gossip instead of keeping their mouth shut and this included security. It was unprofessional but they didn’t seem to know or care. If anything, I was persona non grata for uttering the taboo word in a moment of severe stress and, for all I know, lots worse. The higher ups were sizing me up, giving me the cold shoulder.
There had been a brief whisper of Mom not being welcome there anymore. But I could tell later that she would be welcome there. It was I who was not welcome anymore.
We are supposed to be sensitive to others’ feelings. I understand and respect that. But here was a woman who, for whatever reason, had severely hurt my feelings. She got away with it. At my own workplace. My organization – with whom I have worked for almost two years – treated me like a pariah. They did not give a damn about my feelings. And all because I had tried to do my job. And I had called a crazy person ‘crazy’.
If you experienced a similar situation, in this city or elsewhere, do share.
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