I feel sick, sick, sick to my stomach. Once again a faculty member has shown his true colors. This new guy comes on board and everyone has a high opinion of him. He fits in. He's liked. I like him. No problems. But there must be a flaw, I have thought. This guy is so busy doing what he likes, moves around so much, that he does not seem to have any sort of personal life.

Well, the flaw showed itself today. The guy is a raving, email screaming nut case. He's aimed his guns at me twice this week. Today's attack came totally out of the blue. Something goes wrong with one of his students and he assumes that I did not do my job. He sends this raving email at me.

I've had it. Twenty years I've worked here and there is always some young asshole coming on the scene who thinks he can throw his weight around and throw a tantrum when things don't go his way. I've seen jerks like him come and go. Stupidly I thought I was finally safe from young unseasoned faculty and their egos. Stupidly.

Of course, it hardly matters that I had the information to send him to show him that he was wrong. But enough was enough. Slap me? I slap back. He claims I don't respect him and he's the one yelling and spewing unfounded accusations. Talk about disrespect. So I slapped back and told him he was out of line (among other things).

Now he thinks we can talk because there are things to work out. Fat chance. If he wants to talk to me he can talk to my boss first. When he emailed me, he cc:'d not only my boss, but another faculty member, someone who doesn't have anything to do with the matter at hand. I called him on that too.

I have no intention of going one on one with him. I did not do anything wrong and I've never disrespected him. I don't even know HOW to disrespect. It's not in my nature. No. He can talk to my boss first and then I will talk to her and then if necessary we will talk together and she will mediate. I will not put myself at the mercy of someone who thinks they can say whatever they want and because I am staff I have to take it. I do not have to take it and I won't.

I learned a long time ago how to distance myself from people I don't respect. Yes, Andy, as of that email, I don't have any respect for you which is quite different from behaving in a disrespectful manner. No. What I do now is re-route myself. I distance myself. The best way I know of for re-routing myself from someone when I can't avoid them is to not say their name.

I've used that tactic from time to time over the years. It's subtle and people usually don't get it though they might feel something is off. After all, when I am talking to them or communicating with them in any way, I never say their name. It's a weird way of making them invisible to me. Taking away a person's name takes away their identify. I can acknowledge they are there. I can work with and interact with them. But if I don't say their name, I feel a sense of safety and distance from them. Something tells me that I have a lot of re-routing ahead of me.