Standing Up
The Mayor has gone off on one of his patented rants, this time against overzealous teachers and school administrators and how parents need to stand up to them when they over-reach.
I didn't have any school troubles, but when I was in about 5th grade, I would get out of class and catch a bus to my parents' office building and wait in the lobby for about an hour until they got off work. That is, until the company's HR chief decided that having an 11-year-old boy in a Catholic school uniform quietly doing his homework in a corner reflected badly on the company. He informed my parents that I would have to find somewhere else to wait.
Well, my dad ended up going off on the guy. He marched down to HR and yelled at him in the middle of the office. Within minutes, the whole building of a couple thousand workers was abuzz. You just didn't stand up like that to HR, because they could do things to you. My dad didn't care about that, he went ahead and fought the white-collar equivalent of a tooth-and-nail battle to allow me to stay. He won, too, though the HR guy did extract a pathetic revenge years later.
My dad decided to quit his job, and gave his two weeks' notice to his supervisor. That day, after the HR chief heard about it, he sought my dad out and told him there was no need to wait his two weeks, he could box up his stuff and get out right then and there.
I took me years to fully appreciate my dad's accomplishment, and I swore I would nothing less for my boy.
I didn't have any school troubles, but when I was in about 5th grade, I would get out of class and catch a bus to my parents' office building and wait in the lobby for about an hour until they got off work. That is, until the company's HR chief decided that having an 11-year-old boy in a Catholic school uniform quietly doing his homework in a corner reflected badly on the company. He informed my parents that I would have to find somewhere else to wait.
Well, my dad ended up going off on the guy. He marched down to HR and yelled at him in the middle of the office. Within minutes, the whole building of a couple thousand workers was abuzz. You just didn't stand up like that to HR, because they could do things to you. My dad didn't care about that, he went ahead and fought the white-collar equivalent of a tooth-and-nail battle to allow me to stay. He won, too, though the HR guy did extract a pathetic revenge years later.
My dad decided to quit his job, and gave his two weeks' notice to his supervisor. That day, after the HR chief heard about it, he sought my dad out and told him there was no need to wait his two weeks, he could box up his stuff and get out right then and there.
I took me years to fully appreciate my dad's accomplishment, and I swore I would nothing less for my boy.
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