You've got a friend in me

I tend to overvalue my skills when it comes to protecting my friends.

I conjure these absurd mental images of defending them from the assaults of everyday life.  Onerous regulation that's being enforced unfairly?  Let me take care of that.  One-sided meeting with an overly obnoxious colleague?  Give me five minutes with him.  A supervisor who's unwilling to listen to the context of a problem?  Hold my coffee.

But the truth is I'm not as important as I make myself out to be.  When there's a fight in the hallway, I'm worthless next to Casey Wood.  When a student is upset shedding buckets of tears, I'm nothing compared to Jaimie Wommack.  When a member of my Forensics team is in need of a really creative introduction, I've got nothing on Deborah Bane.  My only solace is that when words are needed to make a case I can lend my own insignificant aid.

I joked with my department last year that I was their Batman and they were my Gotham and I would shatter every verbal bone in my body to protect them from the absurdity that often came down from on high.  The only absurdity was how limited I was in this capacity.  Hell, I couldn't even save Wordly Wise.

Then came yesterday afternoon.  I sat in a room with about a dozen adults, most of them educators, and I watched in horror as one adult with a significant amount of power berated, belittled, and otherwise bullied another adult in the room.  In front of everyone.  The belligerence settled early on in the room.  The man in charge arrived already having made his decision; he was looking for some folks in the room to validate what he had decided to do.  Make no mistake: validation came.  "Oh I think you're absolutely right."  "I'm not sure why we even made some of those decisions before."  "Well, honestly, I was against all of that to begin with."  "You make a really good point."

When the man in charge began leveling accusations at another, at a friend, at my friend, at someone whom I respect professionally, personally, it was hard to stay silent for long.  I watched as the room gradually cemented itself in, so as to appear to not notice that the man in charge was firing threat after threat across the room at his target.  And when I looked at he who received and saw the face of man who had owned up to decisions and mistakes throughout the entire time I knew him I was looking on the face of a Kindergartener who was blindsided by the naked wrath on display.  I have been reduced to depths of pity at funerals and memorial services, but never at a professional meeting.  This was a low I didn't know existed.

Just as quickly as the bottom of my stomach dropped out I found myself gathering in fury.  Who did this man in charge think he was?  Stupid question: I know who he thinks he is.  He made that clear a few years ago.  But this?  This was personal.  And Batman rose from that dark place.  Every opportunity, every glimmer of inroads I took to defend the decision made, the process by which the decision had been made.  I pointed out the absurdity of reversing the decision made now, of stripping something from students and parents alike.  Of undermining them and thus our credibility.  We had set some regulations into motion this year.  Yanking them now spoke of chaos on a grander scale.  Was that to be our reputation?

I was silenced multiple times, with both words and looks.  I remembered that this wasn't a meeting to gather opinion and perspective; it was validate the man in charge with the decision that he had already made.

When the meeting broke the only thought I had was to chase after my friend, and run I did.  I don't think I've ever seen him leave a room so fast.  When I caught up to him and I knew my words were the most important I fumbled through trying to explain to him that what he has said and done these past few years matters, that who he is and what he represents to my and my school matters, that as his friend I was worried for him and thought about him more often than not.  He is too reserved and honorable a man to be caught off guard by any of that.  I didn't want to sound whiny so I switched topics after a bit.  We joked.  I shared some honest things from my year.  In the end, I felt like I should have said or done more but I had never encountered such vitrol in person before.

I have no idea if my friend will ever read this.  Maybe this isn't even for him.  Maybe this is to consolidate my own sense of worth.  I have no plans to be in another meeting with the man in charge but if it should occur, I suspect Batman will make a return performance.