On the Job Duties

Sometimes the best laughter in my classroom, when I was once an employed college instructor, occurs during unplanned moments. My favorite story stems from an English class I taught about a dozen years ago. The class had been added at the last minute and since I was willing to work odd hours, I had about seven students on Tuesday and Thursdays for a couple hours each day. The class, business communications, required sections on writing resumes, a large report, and various business letters. Nothing too hard but in the middle of the afternoon it was hard to keep things going on occasion. It helped that I ran the class pretty informally since most of the students were used to me.

On this particular day, we had been discussing the types of jobs we’d had in the past. I talked about being a medical transcriptionist for three years and could type really fast. I also mentioned working for my father in his print shop and learned my way around Flint when I delivered printing to some of Dad’s older and very faithful customers.

When the conversation came around to one of my younger students, whom we shall call Lisa, she said she hadn’t been working very long, but she liked what she did. She said she was a clerk at a nationally known clothing store and said that one of her jobs was to make sure the shelves were neat and stocked.

I asked, “You mean you straighten shelves, that sort of thing?”

Lisa replied, “No. I put out.”

Dead silence.

The look on Lisa’s face when she realized her words was of shock and horror. I just looked at her and raised my eyebrows. She turned red and put her head on the desk, I think to start banging it to drive the embarrassment away.

The remaining students, well, they were trying so hard not to laugh. I don’t think I’ve seen so many faces contort from that much effort.

In a muffled voice Lisa said, “May I be excused, please?”

I said, “Sure,” as she bolted out of the room.

I must say I was proud of my class because no one laughed out loud until the door finished shutting. Then we started to giggle and wipe our eyes and giggle some more. After a couple minutes of this terribly rude behavior, I told the class that no one, and I meant NO ONE was allowed to tease Lisa about her choice of words—at least not in my classroom.

So, we sobered up and got back on track with the lesson. Lisa returned after about ten minutes and said she was sorry about leaving to abruptly. She was mortified by her words, but even more, she thought it was so funny she was afraid she’d have an if she didn't get out of the room fast enough. I told her she was forgiven. And although I really wanted to ask her about the putting out, I kept my mouth shut, for once.