Disarming the assholes

It’s been a while. Today at media services I worked a shift with Dinah for the first time. I knew her from office meetings, but I wasn’t sure what to expect. She seemed on the level. Dave came in and we all complained about the people who hang out in the library and don’t study and annoy us. There are a couple of regulars that are especially irritating, despite the fact that they never actually talk to us and we never talk to them…we just see them there, wasting time and fucking around. There was a guy sleeping on the couch right outside of the office. This we found especially irksome; it is not as if it is the end of the semester and the guy is just so stressed out that he needs a nap amidst all his studying. The motherfucker probably didn’t even have any books with him. I tried to wake him up first by throwing paper planes at him and then by coughing really loudly as I walked past, but to no avail.

Later on, some dude came in who, based on seeing him around school, seems kind of like an unsavory fucker/douche bag. Sometimes when these types come in I try to be particularly charming to catch them off guard and make them crack a smile or laugh a little bit, and give up their generally affected demeanor (for this guy I made a joke about the other guy sleeping on the couch, among other things). Dinah, in fact, remarked that that was the first time she saw that guy not being an asshole. Well, sometimes I like to disarm the assholes, I said.