#realquote

One of the projects I work on has a new competitor in Mexico who is undercutting our pricing significantly. The lead engineer said yesterday that what we really need is for Trump to come through with huge tariffs on Mexican goods. That would really save our skins with this project.

Tinder guy is talking to me about a potential new conquest. He's all upset that she asked him who he voted for.

"She said she wouldn't date a Trump voter. Can you believe that? I asked her why she'd think I voted for Trump, and she said she 'just had a feeling.' How is it okay that she's judging me like that? She doesn't know me."

I joked that the girl wasn't wrong, was she?

"But that's just as bad as what they accuse Trump voters of doing, being racist or whatever. You can't judge me just based on who I voted for or who you think I voted for."

I avoid the whole "being intolerant of intolerance is somehow as bad as actual racism" conversation, because that way madness lies, at least in my workplace.

I point out again that the girl isn't necessarily wrong in her assumption that he's a Trump voter, so why is he so hot and bothered? And then, possibly because I'm the only "out" liberal around, Tinder guy tells me that he doesn't like Trump at all.

Now, I have heard this guy hit *all* the right wing bro talking points with my coworkers. The outrage over confederate monument removal ("It's history, how can people be so stupid?!") and the fanatical anger at gun control advocates. Tinder guy is the one who told me he'd vote for Kid Rock for Congress in a heartbeat, and he is all for nuking North Korea (and maybe creating an resultant influx of refugee Asian women he could date). I wish I were kidding. Tinder guy has participated in some of the most revolting shop talk I've heard, a damn high bar in this environment.

But now...Tinder guy tells me he thinks Trump is a con man and he doesn't understand why people fell for it. He saw right through that guy, right away. What does a guy as rich as him know about working people?

"But you voted for him too, didn't you?" I ask.

He says, sheepishly looking at the floor, that he didn't vote. He wasn't going to vote for Trump, no way.

"But I couldn't vote for Hillary, because she's a *socialist*"

...

Spotted a bumper sticker at lunch that said, I kid you not, "If you're not dead, God's not done."

Random older guy sits next to me in the waiting room. I’d guess he’s in his early 70s. He is wearing, honest to god, a polyester t-shirt vividly edge-to-edge sublimation printed with a mountain, trees, bright blue sky, and a giant bald eagle diagonal across both the front and back. It’s hard to describe how bright and weird it is.

“Can I sit next to you?” He has already taken the seat next to me, but now he asks, loudly. There are plenty of other chairs. The waiting room is not busy, and I’m in the middle of writing an email on the phone. But he’s clearly decided I’m going to be the target of his pushy friendliness.

And then he says, “Do you bite?” He’s leaning in, laughing, loud. I look at him, unenthusiastic.

“No.” I try to go back to my email.

“Let me see your hand. Are you married?” He grabs my left hand from around my phone, fumbles around with it.

“No.”

“Okay, well, then I bite.” He laughs and pats my knee, leans forward and grins at me, in the total absence of any encouragement or response from me. The other people in the waiting room laugh. One person tells him he’s “a hoot.” Ew. I just look at him.

“Actually, don’t tell my wife, or she’ll bite.” He laughs again, still loud. I’m still just looking at him.

“I’m just kidding. I like to joke around and have a good time, but I don’t mean nothing by it. I say a good day is one where you’re laughing and I just like to make people laugh and smile. I play guitar, I joke around. I play guitar for God.” And then he winks at me, still leaning in.

I am at a loss as to how to respond. What I want to say, sharp and flat and final like a lead brick, in the face of this random person invading my space with his hand on my knee again is, “You know, I’m really not that friendly.” Or, “I don’t actually like people all that much.”

I think things like this a lot. I’ve run out of patience in the last few years for pushy garbage from strangers, where they’re being quite rude, wrapped in a package I’m supposed to accept and respond with civility to. They know you can't politely escape, and some people take advantage of this with unpleasant regularity. Things like, “Everything happens for a reason, you know,” or, “You should really try to be more positive.” “I’m just trying to be friendly.”

I get sorely tempted to be more...conversationally aggressive...than is usually acceptable in response. "You're not being friendly, you're being an asshole. Don't tell me how to feel." Once, I almost answered the "everything happens for a reason" comment with, "Cool, so you're going to explain Ebola and childhood cancer?" Boy, are you really not supposed to bust through the social contract like that. Even telling a friend I thought about saying that last bit made her uncomfortable.

Thankfully, Mr. Touchy Feely gets called in by the nurse and I am saved the social awkwardness of having to publicly shut down the elderly guy everyone else around me seems to think is lovably cheeky. As he gets up and I'm trying to avoid eye contact, I realize he's wearing an actual tan seatbelt as a belt, with a genuine '80s square silver GM seat belt clasp. There are two sets of keys dangling from it. He leaves behind a weird vapor combination of cigarette smoke, cologne, and…fabric softener? Hand soap? Something.

"If I ran for Congress, would you vote for me?"

This, today, from the most arguably incompetent and useless guy we have, the guy who is a year into his "project manager" job and still doesn't know what serial number we're making or how the project actually works.

He can't even print out correctly numbered shipping labels and work orders, but now everyone's a political expert, I guess. A Trump-voting, right wing noise machine devotee responds:

"I don't know. I'd have to know what you stand for, what your platform is. I don't take any of that stuff lightly. It's a serious decision, who I vote for."

I'd like to point out that responder here is a guy who said recently that he'd vote for Kid Rock, would have been willing to vote for Ted Nugent, and frequently calls Hillary Clinton a "murderess" for Benghazi. Still. Also, he thinks she was endorsed by the nationwide KKK organization and has a Grand Wizard as a BFF and mentor. I mean, these views are what passes for normal in my workplace. A different coworker for real told me today he'd vote for Kid Rock in a heartbeat.

Our newly minted prospective Senator says:

"My platform would be freedom."

I'm not even kidding. I'm stuck in between these two guys, trying to fill in my time sheet on the computer, trying to keep a straight face and not get involved. My. Platform. Would. Be. Freedom.

A few beats later, "And smaller government, of course."

A few more beats, and he glances at me. "And women's rights."

Mr. Bastion of American Values here once asked me, when he found out I was a single parent, if my son's dad was a "strong male role model in his life," in a tone of serious concern. That little bit of coded language right there...yeah, so not engaging with that, then or now.

I finish on the computer and retreat as quickly as I can. On the way out, I hear him say: