Zing!

Who remembers the old Batman shows on TV, circa 1960s? (Actually I don’t know when, but you get the picture) When they fought, the sound effects were “enhanced” by showing big colorful words like “Bam!” “Zing!” “Bang!” at just the right moment of impact.

Notice the trend didn’t last long. Can you imagine a LOTR with these captions??

The reason why I bring this up is because I know as a young, female American, I am bound to have some negative experiences, especially in the workplace. Only on my third day, I have accumulated some Zingers already.

Luckily they have been limited to mainly one person, who I will only be working with on one project.

For example…after my introduction of who I am, my degrees, where I worked before, etc. etc. another hour of talk about the project itself. Then,

“How old are you?”

ZING!

Now, remember that here in Italy, age is a part of everything. My students introduce themselves in English using their age, you have to put your birthdate on your curriculum, and many jobs actually request a specific age range. So, it wasn’t exactly unexpected. After my answer, then,

“Oh. I would have given you 25.”

BAM!

Looking at my hair (ok, I have an inch or two of gray showing right now) then,

“Or…I could just as easily say 30.”

Note to reader: Still 1/2 his age. Maybe he was trying to cover up there. I laughed it off and said that in a few years of course it will be very important for me to look younger! Ha ha. Ha. … ha.

Later, after watching him look for a file for seriously 30 minutes, in which I was slowing giving myself paper cuts in the hope I would cause some serious damage to my wrists and end the torture, (Side note: this file, was four columns in an Excel file, with one line of data, which we had printed. Could we have recreated it in less time? You be the judge. I know, it’s the principle).

Possibly him noticing my boredom, out of nowhere,

“What did you study?”

WHAM!

(Remember, I had already introduced myself two days before) I looked at him, confused, and said,

“Oh, you mean, which thingS did I study? I have TWO degrees.”

ZING!

Sara 1, Him 2.

My victory was short-lived, though. During our lunch alone together (my coworkers all left me), I mentioned that I had gotten married only a few months ago, in August.

“Ah, si. Americans are still getting married even if they [the marriages] last less time.”

ZAP x 256million (for my countrymen)

Game over.