"Fuck off!"

Catchy title don't you think? But this is a well used phrase in the English language, the importance of which is often undermined. I have used it in my lifetime. Not as often as some but it has its place. Mostly amongst friends. It's a little more emphatic than "No way!" or "Get out!" or "You're kidding!" Kinda packs a verbal, (or even written), Elaine-esque push with it. For those who don't speak Seinfeld, it's more emphatic.

I've often used it to address inanimate objects such as video games, computer screens, alarms etc. And I like it when anonymously telling off bad drivers, bad athletes on my team or good ones on the other, bearers of bad news or things like that. But I rarely use it to directly address a person in anger. That person would probably have to be someone who had previously done some pretty hard work to lose my respect and they would have to be doing something previous to my using the phrase to piss me off.

Well, I told my supervisor to fuck off this week. Yeah, my special season's greeting for her alone. And man, you know at this time how they say it's better to give than to receive? Well I'm feeling that!

I'm not going to rehash all the trouble I've had with her. It would be a huge entry. In fact you can read about some of it in previous posts. I'll just sum up the major stuff: She lied to me repeatedly about the initial contract which cost me a vacation, caused me a lot of unnecessary trouble with immigration and screwed me out of two camps that would have gained me about 6 thousand bucks. She also made me cancel for the second time with the camp I got screwed out of by my PREVIOUS supervisor in the same way. This makes me look pretty undependable. She's also, in tandem with another worker, Dumb and Dumber I call them, caused more stress than enough with her office politics.

But it's the end of the year. I was this close to being finished and never having to see her again. All I had to do was input my students' final grades into the HUFS website, hand in exams, attendance etc. and I was done. So I go to the website and it doesn't work. I had asked my supervisor nicely if the site would be any different since it had been changed mid semester but she assured me it would be the same as usual. She was right. Last session it didn't work when we tried to input marks either. We had to wait until the website workers TURNED IT ON. How stupid is that? Well I just assumed this was the problem again. I called Mee Sook, my supervisor. She didn't answer. It WAS late so I didn't blame her. I waited till the next day. I called during office hours. It was a Friday and I figured she'd be at work. She actually opened her cell phone and closed it. Effectively hanging up on me in the modern style. She has my name on her phone so she knew who it was calling.

So I texted her and asked when we could input grades. She texted back the dates which included the day this took place. I texted again, "So I can input grades TODAY?" She texted "YES". So I called her. This time she answered. What followed was what I was expecting. She instantly assumed I was the problem and asked if I had gone to this area of the website and then to that area, then clicked this or that and I said, "Yes, yes, yes, yes..." I was very patient. Then she started suggesting every possible thing that I could do, none of them in the best interest of anyone but her lazy ass because she knew that what needed to be done was something only SHE could do. I.E. WORK for her. And she knew that once again I had caught her telling me what she thought it was I wanted to hear, not the truth.

She said I probably had a problem with my computer, I should go into the school and use one of theirs, I should wait till monday, I should ask some other teachers, (which I had and found that I was the first one inputting marks. Only one other teacher tried and had trouble), talk to office workers, she even suggested that I go talk to the people in charge of the website, (who only speak Korean), and ask them what's going on. And this whole time her voice is in a high-pitched, whiney, yelling tone because she doesn't like it when I point out her incompetence but still blames me for the problems she brings on herself. So I ask her why SHE doesn't call the website guys and see if they've got the site turned on. I can't do it cuz I don't speak Korean. Well then she started really yelling. All the same stuff. Why don't you why don't you why don't you blah blah fucking blah. So then I started raising my voice. "Why are you yelling at me? I am just trying to get my marks to my students as soon as possible. This helps the school, the other teachers and even YOU!" She kept yelling. "I'm not in the office. I'm on the street. Why don't you (same shit same shit same shit)?" So I just said, "Oh, fuck off!" and hung up on HER.

Shortly after the phone call, like maybe 5 minutes, I got ahold of another teacher and asked her if she'd had any trouble. She hadn't started plugging in marks yet but was in front of a computer so she did exactly what I'd been trying and I did it for about the fiftieth time. Suddenly it WORKED! The website was on.

It's pretty obvious that Mee Sook had called the website workers and told them to turn on the website. I wonder if the Korean teachers have to be told to mark their exams after they give them. Like do these people not have the ability to think for themselves? And rather than tell the website workers to open the site for teachers to input grades after every exam session, Mee Sook probably thinks the only option is to tell them every individual time. She's got a Ph. D. remember.

Most likely what happened is she called and asked if the website was on. It wasn't on but they said it WAS. Then they turned it on after hanging up. So Mee Sook will lie and say she knew it was working all the time, (like she had lied to me and told me), and she'll lie and say she never called to tell the website guys to turn it on. The website guys will lie and say it was always on. And the only guy who didn't lie, ME, will look like a big asshole for telling her to fuck off. That's Confucianism at its best. Acting, lying, showing fake respect to people who've long since lost it... FUCK OFF!

So maybe in fact I wasn't directly telling Mee Sook to fuck off, I was telling the part of this culture that encourages deception to fuck off. This is new. I don't know if I've used this phrase to personally address a philosophy or social conviction before. See how useful it is?