What can I say; he's the topic of discussion around here again. This time I present Annoyance Eric in Poland.
Oh yes, he was allowed out of the country to represent the university in a foreign country. We have an arrangement with one of the universities in Poland that the Red-Headed Theatre Ed Prof goes over to teach for a month (this is the 10th year or something) and they send some of the Polish students over to our uni for the year. Usually we get one for the whole year, but we can also have two for just a semester (the Pol-uni can only afford the cost of two semesters, so if that means two for one semester, that's all they can manage).
The only thing good about the situation is that least he wasn't there alone. Two lovely examples of Americana were also chosen to go on the trip- Melcam (first three letters of both her first and last name) and Kiera, as well as Red-Headed Theatre Ed Prof. The students only went for a little over a week- ten days maybe.
Melcam says AE had at least one temper tantrum every single day, and this was a ten day trip. They weren't in the country two hours when he began. He flipped out at the wife of the theatre director who picked them up from the airport. The reason? The unsuspecting woman addressed a question solely to Kiera rather than all three of them.
Melcam also said that in spite of his behaviour, the Poles were nothing but gracious and friendly and everything that the culture is to him, and couldn't understand why he was just such a jerk in return. She told me that she used to have some sympathy for him, mostly because she had never been in any classes with him or had any real contact with him, but after spending ten days with him, she agrees with the rest of us. I guess the girl who is most likely coming from Poland next year asked what American schools were like if they let people like that in, because they�d never do it in Poland. I told Melcam her response should�ve been, �Well, you know anything about our president? Yeah.�
J-Boss is concerned because he�s also going on the trip to the technical theatre convention next week. If he decides to put on a show for her benefit, she�s going to have him on the carpet and he�s going to have a big piece of her mind to deal with. Some of the other faculty have told us that they just ignore him when he acts like that, which is, of course, not fixing the problem. He�s only gotten significantly worse since he transferred here two years ago. Thank goodness he�s wasn�t here for the full four.
Well, I say significantly worse, but at least he�s not physically destructive- not that we know of. Last year he was working late on some project for a class. He got pissed, and went and yanked the paper towel dispenser off the wall in the classroom. A sturdy metal holder, out of the concrete wall. Poor Karissa, the only other person in the room at the time, was so scared of him she packed up all her stuff and left.
He�s not the first person in the department with no social skills, but he�s the first person I have ever met who could be the poster child for �anger management problems�, and I thought my father and I had bad tempers. Sometimes I feel bad at the acidity of everyone towards him, but at the same time, there�s no excuse for the way he acts. Why should we ignore it, thereby condoning it? Do you scold your dog if it craps on the rug? Do you put people in jail if they go �round shooting other people? Do you ostracise people who can�t behave themselves?
At the very least, I hope the three guys stuck sharing a hotel room with Annoyance Eric for the next trip don�t kill him.