Big White Barbie, The Boss Man, and the Heating Incident

The Boss Man decided that a highly effective means of boosting employee morale would be to announce that all staff meals are to be eaten in the only room in the building without a functioning heater. We had abandoned this classroom in early November for this very reason.

My school, also known as “Barbie Hagwon”, stretches between two buildings. The first building is where the office and abandoned classroom are. The second building houses the remaining classrooms and a common room, all of which have semi-functioning heaters. Now, moving us to the common room would have made a good deal of sense. To me. And only me, apparently. Despite there being no more than 2-3 classes going on simultaneously after 6pm, The Boss Man decided that instead of using one of other 4 classrooms or the common room, that it’s about damn time we start using that other classroom again! You know, the one with the broken heater! While I understand his desire to not let an entire freezing room go to waste, I don’t quite follow how this led him to conclude that there is no time like the present to start spending more time in there. I was thinking that it might be a nice spot to start keeping my drinks. But no! The heater will fix itself! Right?

Due to the monumental stupidity of this idea, I decided that I would start going to the kimbap restaurant down the street for dinner. Unfortunately, this will only fly Monday and Wednesday when I have a two hour break between my evening classes. I advised the secretary to tell The Boss Man that I would no longer be coming in to work 45 minutes before class on the other days. Given that I spend the first half hour of that eating my lunch, scratching my ass, and posing as the Requisite White Face, it now makes more sense to pass on the take-out and just eat my meal in the restaurant before work. It’s been my observation that restaurants tend to have heated rooms. The secretary giggled and advised me that he was working on the heating issue. Colour me unconvinced.

The first Monday that we were ordered to eat in The Cold Room I went down the street to eat as planned. Upon my return, I found that the office smelled suspiciously like kimchi. I asked one of my coworkers how eating in The Cold Room went; this was my passive-aggressive way of asking why they weren’t eating in The Cold Room. It’s been my finding that this is far more effective than the more direct approach that I’m accustomed to. My coworker advised me that they had started their meal in The Cold Room, but in the midst of enjoying a delicious meal of whatever-they-were-eating, the heater apparently fell off the wall and nearly took one of them out on the way down. Imagine my surprise! I did my best to conceal that I was dying laughing on the inside and ensured that nobody had been knocked out or lit on fire. My coworker assured me that everybody was just dandy and that the heating issue had since been resolved.

Colour me unconvinced.

Big White Barbie: 2
The Boss Man: -1

Unfortunately, even though I was entirely correct that eating in The Cold Room was an absolutely ridiculous plan, it's The Boss Man's hagwon. Hence, he gets the final say on these matters, so the ridiculous plan will continue to be implemented. Until the building goes up in flames or somebody is fatally wounded, that is. His inability to admit he was mistaken and come up with a better plan has resulted in him being deducted a point on the Big White Barbie Scoreboard.