I Love My Job, But...

Who’s heard of the “new version” of the word “gay”? Apparently it’s spelled g-a-i-e (pronounced the same way) and as long as you’re using that version of the "word"—it’s an adjective—then you’re not being offensive when you call, say, the chair you’re sitting in “gaie”.

Who had to hear about this "word" while trying to actually work in her office today?

Yes, a student I just met and now, y’know, hate, came in and explained to my boss (note: the man in charge of multicultural issues at my institution) the “word” in reference to a story about a woman who he thinks is now mad at him because, gasp, she objected to his use of “gaie”.

Who had to hear her boss’ response to this tantalizing new vocabulary story be, if you can imagine, almost as offensive as the idea itself? After a painful lack of commenting on the clear absurdity of this “new word”, the big, bad, power-hungry boss said only, “C’mon, be a man about it. Talk to her.”

Maybe I’ll decide to be ‘man enough’ to quit. I do, after all, only work in a Multicultural Center and I guess, should expect offensive language to be thrown all around. Yes, maybe I could find a better fit somewhere else.

Or maybe that’d just be “gaie”.