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Not only does it make you one, but you interfere with their chance to demonstrate their idiocy. This one is largely me. And I only now just realised that it's also me being racist.
We had two days of TA training. It also serves as a mini-orientation to the university. The last presentation of the day was from Police Services. It was a really short one, and the difference between themselves and the non-campus regional police that they listed was that they didn't carry a gun (rather than the fact that I believe they still get extra community interaction training, specifically for students). The presenter at the end opened it up for questions. The "What are you doing about the bicycle theft problem on campus" guy was annoying enough. Not the forum. But it was the "What are you doing about the non-functional surveillance cameras on campus" guy who I screwed up because of. I should have just walked out when I first got the urge.
Eventually I lost patience and told him to stop carrying out a vendetta. First mistake - I didn't tell him to stop wasting our time. Second mistake - I really should know by now that I'm bad about yelling, both telling when someone else is doing it, and in making sure that I don't. Third mistake - I decided to keep face when he said that "he didn't interrupt me, why am I interrupting him". (Yes, I know, him interrupting the police services guy instead of listening to the answers isn't actually cause for this). Fourth mistake - Both this guy and the bike guy were from less T-oriented cultures. Bike guy sounded and dressed Pakistani, and this guy had dark skin, didn't look brown so I'm assuming African descent. I didn't recognise his accent, so he might have been from the Carribean instead of African? I don't know, but they both tend to be more emotionally demonstrative than we do. At least so the cultural training I've had says. (I've never had the formal stuff, just the materials from other people going).
Finally: this guy was arguing with the police. Specifically one who had had extra training in dealing with young hot-heads. It's bad enough to do this in a normal argument. If I'm really worried about a fight breaking out I can always call for police/security/etc. But when it's with the police? The guy could have just kept wearing himself out. (Although he wasn't open to waiting and discussing later, I didn't yell until he ignored the co-ordinator suggesting that he was keeping us late, talk to the guy later. Or rather, until he didn't let the co-ordinator finish).
We had two days of TA training. It also serves as a mini-orientation to the university. The last presentation of the day was from Police Services. It was a really short one, and the difference between themselves and the non-campus regional police that they listed was that they didn't carry a gun (rather than the fact that I believe they still get extra community interaction training, specifically for students). The presenter at the end opened it up for questions. The "What are you doing about the bicycle theft problem on campus" guy was annoying enough. Not the forum. But it was the "What are you doing about the non-functional surveillance cameras on campus" guy who I screwed up because of. I should have just walked out when I first got the urge.
Eventually I lost patience and told him to stop carrying out a vendetta. First mistake - I didn't tell him to stop wasting our time. Second mistake - I really should know by now that I'm bad about yelling, both telling when someone else is doing it, and in making sure that I don't. Third mistake - I decided to keep face when he said that "he didn't interrupt me, why am I interrupting him". (Yes, I know, him interrupting the police services guy instead of listening to the answers isn't actually cause for this). Fourth mistake - Both this guy and the bike guy were from less T-oriented cultures. Bike guy sounded and dressed Pakistani, and this guy had dark skin, didn't look brown so I'm assuming African descent. I didn't recognise his accent, so he might have been from the Carribean instead of African? I don't know, but they both tend to be more emotionally demonstrative than we do. At least so the cultural training I've had says. (I've never had the formal stuff, just the materials from other people going).
Finally: this guy was arguing with the police. Specifically one who had had extra training in dealing with young hot-heads. It's bad enough to do this in a normal argument. If I'm really worried about a fight breaking out I can always call for police/security/etc. But when it's with the police? The guy could have just kept wearing himself out. (Although he wasn't open to waiting and discussing later, I didn't yell until he ignored the co-ordinator suggesting that he was keeping us late, talk to the guy later. Or rather, until he didn't let the co-ordinator finish).
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