Sunday, February 6, 2011

Sunday morning

It is 5.30am and a balmy 26 (78.8F) degrees with 94% humidity. By the time you have had a shower and got dressed you are soaking wet... it feels disgusting... and the only relief in sight is the air-conditioned bus ride to work. That has to be the very definition of sad.

Mr. Dapper got on the bus, his sleeves rolled up so one can finally see the brightly coloured tattoo... it is a phoenix. And one noticed that his arms are shaved like his head. It is a bit like Jadzia's spots... you wonder how far the shaving goes. And when did men get so fastidious about hair removal?

Even the baby at work shaves his legs. Well Veet’s them... it’s smoother he assures everyone. It is sometimes on the tip of one’s tongue to point out that hair removal is not going to improve his pasty white, scrawny little chicken legs, until one remembers his natural hair colour. Blinks and calls for eye bleach. Stat!

When did we become so obsessed with personal grooming? Or were we always like this and the advent of American talk show culture has just eroded our boundaries enough, that we have no qualms about sharing this stuff with each other; either by word, picture or show and tell. Honestly one has seen more body parts of the young co-workers than you would expect. Shins, thighs, tummies, backs of necks, tops of bottoms and chests... all these things are covered by your uniforms for a reason. And no, one is not a prude in case you are starting to wonder J

The problem is that just as this generation have no sense of boundaries, they have no qualms with complaining about harassment, if you make them feel uncomfortable. Work has become this intricate dance of stepping around these potential traps. So when they say look at this, as they start hauling up, down or sideways on some item of uniform, one usually says no thank you. Which is, of course, summarily ignored. Maybe one should complain about them... it might stop all this sharing. See that is what is needed; less sharing and more decorum J

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