I’m not everyone’s schoolteacher.

I just had a really unpleasant phone conversation with one of the office guys who work at the firm that manages my apartment building.

It’s a long story, but essentially the reason I called was because the office had given me two very different stories about a particular issue and I wanted to resolve the miscommunication, especially considering that the fallout from the miscommunication is going to cost me some change.

The guy I spoke to — ooh, he gave me the willies.  Rude doesn’t quite cut it.  He wasn’t rude per se, at least at first.  No, at first he was smarmy.  He spoke to me as if I was a slightly hard-of-hearing idiot who needed to be guided through the steps of my rental agreement.  He actually asked me — very slowly, enunciating each word — if I knew that my rent was due every month on the first.  (I can’t tell you, I can’t begin to describe the quality of his voice when he said that.)  The fact that such a question had nothing to do with the reason why I was calling in the first place makes the whole situation even more infuriating.

(I should quickly mention that I think the men who work at that management office are trained to talk to women renters as if they’re hard-of-hearing idiots.  Whenever I call to talk about something that’s not working correctly in my apartment, I get spoken to as if I don’t understand how to operate a doorknob.)

The conversation, and the man’s tone of voice, were both so infuriating that it was all I could do from turning into a shrew and lambasting him.  As it was, I got snippy and strangely eloquent, which sometimes happens when I’m in a ridiculous argument that should not have even begun.  This didn’t seem to help the situation, because I was using big words that he probably thought I wasn’t capable of (judging by the fact that he was treating me like a hard-of-hearing, can’t-use-a-doorknob idiot).

He repeated himself several times.  When I tried to clarify my position, he repeated himself some more.

He interrupted me.  Like, a lot.  Just about every time I was trying to make a point, in fact.

When I wouldn’t back down, he suddenly gave up and essentially hung up on me.

I then jumped up and down, kicked at the air, tore some paper, and wrote an angry rant of letter to the management copy complaining about the man’s behavior and decrying their customer service policy as a whole.

Then, as it usually happens, the act of writing the angry rant cleansed me of my anger and left me sober and more thoughtful.  I probably won’t send it — though I’m tempted to — mostly because I doubt anything will actually happen in terms of the office changing the way they deal with their tenants.  If anything, I could be placed in an awkward situation.  If you don’t like us, I’m imagining them saying, then why don’t you just leave?

And when it comes down to it, this guy is probably some mid-level functionary who couldn’t really help me anyway and was just trying to handle another phone call.

So what am I thoughtful about?

Well, this: I think my major issue is that I’m a school teacher.  Here’s what I mean.

As a teacher, my role in the classroom isn’t just to lead discussions and make sure that everyone knows that Hamlet is a revenge tragedy and that Fortinbras is a foil, and what a foil is, and the double meaning of the word foil, and so on.  My role in the classroom is to teach the students how to be — this is going to sound corny — good together.  Good citizens.

Most of the hour-and-forty-five-minute teaching blocks I have are discussion-based.  This means that students have to learn how to listen to each other, how to talk about their ideas fluently, how to be polite, and how not to interrupt and get snarky or smarmy or lofty or in any way unproductive.

In fact, the large portion of my job is about helping shape citizenship.  It’s why I insist that students ask for help appropriately, and it’s why I get them to pick up after themselves when they leave the classroom and turn work in on time and ask for permission when they borrow items from my classroom and on and on.  “Appropriate” is a term I use constantly in my work.  Teaching citizenship — teaching respect — is a full-time job, as anyone who has children or works with them can testify to — but it’s valuable and important.

And as a teacher, I’m afforded the extra benefit of — well, being listened to.  I teach fantastic students, and they listen to me when I ask them not to interrupt, to pick up after themselves, to speak directly and intelligently, to listen to each other, and to not treat each other like hard-of-hearing idiots (not that I’ve used that term).

This benefit means that I get to be one of the team of people — the franchise of parents, teachers, coaches, and other mentors — who help to shape a young person.

It’s pretty awesome.

And it’s made me extra aware of the extraordinary rudeness out there in the world.  More than that, it’s made me aware of the callous way many of us treat each other, and aware of the fact that many people don’t actually know how to listen or have a conversation or work through an argument.  Including, at times, me.

So after I wrote my angry letter, I realized that its content focused more on the nature of the conversation I had with that guy, his rude smarminess, than on the real issue at hand.

I wanted him, his boss, and his parents to know that he needs to work on listening, on not interrupting, and on developing his argument rather than repeating his thesis.

Seriously, I almost used those words.

And I began to think that maybe the reason why the phone call was so unpleasant, or at least one of the reasons, was because I wanted to be treated like a schoolteacher when really I was just a tenant.

I don’t mean to imply that anyone deserves to be treated disrespectfully.  I mean that I wasn’t in a position to correct the fellow, despite the fact that every fiber in my professional being was screaming at me to tell him,

“Please don’t interrupt.  When someone is speaking, you need to be quiet, listen, and wait until the floor is yours.”

Or

“I don’t appreciate your tone of voice.  You’re making it difficult for me to listen to you.”

Or

“What are you trying to say?  What’s your argument?  Don’t just rephrase the prompt.  Think about what’s at stake here, where the contention lies.”

Or

“Please email me to set up an appointment to discuss this further.  And let me check in with your advisor.”

But I couldn’t.  I can’t.  Because basically, I’m not his teacher.

I’m not everyone’s teacher.

That’s sort of what it comes down to.

I’m only three years in to my full-time high school teaching gig, and I’m still in the process of differentiating my work mode from my personal life mode.  It’s difficult to separate these modes, especially at the end of a long school day.

So when I made that phone call and I was met with rude smarminess, I reacted like a teacher.  Which wasn’t really helpful.

And yes, I’m angry with myself for getting snippy and strangely eloquent, and for not really getting my point across.

But mostly I’m aware, once again, of this giant world of rudeness that exists in the universe, and maybe specifically in Los Angeles, and despite the fact that I’m not everyone’s schoolteacher, I would like anyone reading this to agree with me on the following:

Listen, speak clearly, make your point, don’t interrupt, don’t put anyone down.

And let people out of the elevator before getting in.

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