Catfish Me: Part I, This Catfishing Stuff, What the Hell Are You Talking About?

Catfishing, not to be confused with catphishing. . . or, um, exactly to be confused with catphishing. I don’t know. This is all very confusing. I feel like my real skill or gift or—I don’t know, inclination?—is writing and not researching, but I gave the full breadth and depth of the internet’s resources an exhaustive search for about three minutes. Look, I’m trying to say that research isn’t my thing as far as this blog goes. I don’t know the difference.

What is my thing? I have a few things. Promoting sweater vest awareness, making furniture, writing about cool shit like this, emotionally abusing one of my cats. I have a very fulfilling life. Another thing I do on a regular basis—besides actually doing work for the “man”—is entertaining myself, so I don’t lose it. And there are some pretty niche pursuits that amuse me, so it can take a bit of work sometimes.

One of those pursuits is to screw around on the internet. Not doing research, of course, nor gaming. And I’m no hacker like Anonymous or anything like that. I’m more into my personal brand of foolishness, and one of my most beloved foolish things to do is to engage with catfishers or catphishers. I don’t know which, really, maybe both?

I think catphishers try to pretend they’re someone who wants to establish a relationship with some unsuspecting dope—like me—to get access to whatever info they can—my bank account, my work stuff, etc.—while catfishers do, like, exactly the same thing, but they go right for it and try to get money from whichever dope they’re targeting—again, frequently me.

Or vice-versa. I don’t know, and If I can’t figure it out after my exhaustive research, then you know no one may ever be able to solve the mystery of what the difference between catfishing and catphishing is. It’s just one of those eternal questions, like, “Is there a God?” Well, except that I know there isn’t a “God,” but I don’t know the difference between catfishing and catphishing.

I do know that the term comes from actual catfish. Well, not from them. Catfish didn’t come up with the term about themselves like some goddamn narcissist and then decide to misspell it sometimes just to fuck with everyone. Catfish aren’t like that.

However, I did learn in my “research” that when fish-shippers used to, I think, ship live cod all over the place, the cod would get all fat and lazy if they were shipped alone. So, here’s what the fish-shippers started doing, see. They started putting catfish in the codfish shipping containers, or something like that. (I keep wanting to coin the term, “fishippers.”) So, then, when the cod saw the catfish, the cod thought the catfish were super-hot babes who were interested in sex and relationships with cod. The cod then decided to get gym memberships and stay in shape along the way, so they could try to impress the catfish. There was a lot of competition for the attention of these catfish, so by the end of the trip, the catfish had suckered all the cod into giving up their userids and passwords for their work accounts and financial resources. Devastated, the cod all killed themselves and had their bodies donated to fish stick manufacturers and science or whatever. Tragic.

The first time I heard the term “catphish”—or “catfish” or whatever—was a couple years after I had actually engaged with my first catfishers. I heard about it in relation to the story of University of Notre Dame football player Manti Te’o.

Te’o was a Heisman Trophy finalist and an All American that year. Notre Dame was having a great season—leading up to the National Championship Game against Alabama. (During the game, whilst Alabama was drubbing Notre Dame, I started an online petition to try to get Alabama to stop beating them so badly. It did not work.)

One week, much earlier in the season, they announced that Te’o’s girlfriend had died. “They” were the sports media. (I don’t remember this all that clearly, and I blew my entire research budget trying to figure out what the difference between “catphishing” and “catfishing” is. Well, maybe we should all stop writing the word and reading it. If we just say “catphishing” or “catfishing,” no one is going to ask if we mean “catfishing” or “catphishing” because they sound the same—unless one of them doesn’t use the voiceless labiodental fricative ⟨f⟩ sound, and I’m not about to try and find out.

Anyway, everyone was all sad because Te’o lost his grandmother and his girlfriend. Sad, huh! Or not. Well, it was sad that he lost his grandmother. I can sympathize with that. I’ve lost a grandmother or two along the way, myself. Okay, two actually, along with a couple grand dames who felt like grandmothers to me, emotionally speaking, of course. (I’ve lost a few grandmothers along the way? I obviously can’t be trusted with grandmothers.) But Te’o, then grandmotherless, lost his girlfriend, too.

He kept playing, though, because that’s what athletes do. They play the fucking game, man, and he did it to honor their memories. That’s what athlete’s do, unless, of course, they take a game off to grieve, because athletes also do that sometimes. In many ways, athletes are just like you and me—except they’re probably a lot cooler than you and nowhere nearly as cool as me.

But yeah, goddamn Te’o, man, he lost his grandma and his girlfriend. At least that’s what we thought, and the past tense in “that’s what we thought” is doing some heavy lifting here because it’s been past tense for a long time. Well, “thought” has pretty much always been the past tense of the verb “to think” in modern English, but we’re not going that far back. We’re going back to a point that happened pretty quickly after the sports world was shocked by that young man’s tragic losses during that season.

You see, Te’o had more than one reason to play through the pain of losing his girlfriend. Sure, he legitimately blew off his grandma’s funeral because he wanted to be there for his team, man. He was part of something bigger than himself—and his grandma—and he wanted to dedicate his play to her. He was so goddamn dedicated to the team that he was going to blow of ol’ girl’s funeral, too.

The thing is, see, there was no funeral for his girlfriend. No, everyone in the girl’s family wasn’t so dedicated to Notre Dame football that season that they decided to not even bury this girl.

“Just leave her in the cooler, Marty. There’s football yet to be played.”

Can you believe they said that to Marty? Well, believe me, you can’t make this shit up. No, you can’t make this shit up because I just did. (I will probably never explain my personal interpretation of “you can’t make this shit up” again. Take note.)

So, there wasn’t a funeral for Te’o’s sweet love because she, well, wasn’t.

When reporters started sticking their noses into this young public figure’s business, so they could, I don’t know, appropriately memorialize her for the world, they discovered that there was no girlfriend. (Now go back and read that again, but make sure you click on the link in “that” before reading on. You’re welcome.)

That’s right, Manti Te’o had been catphished. (I’m pretty sure I’m using the appropriate “catfish” in that sentence but not in these parentheses.) Someone—and I didn’t care enough to try to find out if anyone ever found out who—had been pretending to be in a relationship with our erstwhile young Fighting Irish?. . . Fighting Irishman? . . . our erstwhile young Notre Dame football player.

Indeed, and while there’s no evidence—that I can remember—of Te’o’s, um, would-be young love trying to get money from him, that may have been the plan. And why did I tell this story? A, it’s hilarious, and B, it really brought catfishing or catphishing—fuck it—cat⟨f⟩ishing into the public eye for many people, especially college football fans. And I like me some college football.

I kind of felt bad for Te’o. Kind of. I mean, he did bring this on himself by falling so hard, apparently, for someone who was pretending to love him online during a season when Notre Dame was getting more attention than normal because they were, you know, good. He had to face a lot more press than usual because he was playing in the National Champeenship, and he was a Heisman finalist. If he’d only been playing on a suckier Notre Dame team that year, maybe he wouldn’t have received so much attention.

The poor bastard couldn’t even use the age-old “my girlfriend lives in Canada, so you wouldn’t know her” thing because he was famous, and the American sports media would have known how to get to Canada and ask around for this young man’s girlfriend. Well, I guess he could have said, “You don’t know her. She’s in Canada, and she’s dead.” But no, he had to go public with his online love.

One of the upsides of Te’o’s story—along with not only learning what cat⟨f⟩ishing is and realizing that I had been so targeted—is, of course, the memes. The meme campaign against him was hilarious. I won’t search for them, because I’m pretty lazy, but you can. My favorite had a couple pictures of notable football players from the Southeastern Conference (SEC) along with their attractive girlfriends. It said, “The SEC: We have real girlfriends.” Hilarious. . . And who am I kidding. There is no downside to Te’o’s story for me.

You’re probably thinking that I’m getting some kind of perverse glee out of piling on Te’o by revisiting his notorious late—albeit fake—girlfriend story, and you’d be right. I am. It is so goddamn funny, but I can also identify with the poor bastard. I’ve been cat⟨f⟩ished. Well, there’s been an attempt. . . okay, attempts, many attempts. But I must admit, there were moments, initial moments, when I would have loved for the women in these pictures to have actually been interested in me—and, of course, to have actually been local—even as stupid as they came across sometimes. That’s kind of a turn-off for me. I’m into smart women. (But maybe, I thought in those moments, maybe they just don’t write good, like me, you know?)

I’m not going to sit here nor stand here nor drive here nor take a shower here nor whatever I’m doing here—or wherever—when you’re reading this and tell you that I didn’t have moments when I wished that it all could have been true—one internet lady at a time, of course—even at times when I’ve received message requests from people using the same goddamn picture as multiple attempted cat⟨f⟩ishers have used before. (Wow, she looks familiar. Oh.) Even then, in those lonely moments, when I’d wished that I didn’t have my head so far up my ass, so that I could possibly make a real connection with someone, even then, I’ve thought to myself, ever-so-quickly, I wish this could be real.

But those moments pass, for me. I’m no Manti Te’o, neither on the football field, nor with the fake internet chicks. There is a teeny-tiny part of me that just adores Te’o’s then innocent response. Someone, someday, could write a beautiful coming-of-age story—maybe a screenplay—inspired by Te’o’s ability to love and then learn.

That somebody will not be me. I have different stories to tell: my Russian loves and my Nigerian girlfriends among others, and the time I was one response away from actually sending one of my cat⟨f⟩ishers money. Seriously.

Catfish Me: An Introduction to My Search for Love Online

Sometimes it seems like yesterday, but it’s been over ten years since my marriage deteriorated to its painful but not entirely unforeseeable conclusion—unforeseeable in the retrospective sense, of course, if there is a retrospective sense of foresight. It was difficult, though. I came to realize that I had to accept much more of the responsibility (I hated the idea of using the word “blame” here) for the marriage’s failure than I’d initially been willing—or, rather, honest enough—to admit.

And, before you start thinking that I regret the divorce, no, I do not. I’m not a fan of regret. I try to learn from things rather than regret them. I’ve moved on from the marriage—which is what this piece is about—and so has she. She’s found a much better match for herself, and I’m genuinely happy for them. I just mention the marriage and its dissolution as an introduction to my journey of love. Anyway. . .

Now that I think about it, though, these several sentences hence, it does seem so long ago. I’ve learned so much about myself since then. Most importantly, I’ve let myself love again along the way. It took some time to learn and to grieve, but when the time came, I was ready.

About 15 months later, in fact, I was ready, really ready, like really ready-ready. Really. I’d reconnected with someone I’d met in college, and we really hit it off after the interim years of growing and stuff. I mean, we really hit it off. We moved-in together and all that. We probably would have married if it hadn’t been for the one thing—the one big thing—that we couldn’t get past.

"I was ready, really ready, like really ready-ready"

But this isn’t that story, either. It’s this story, the story of before how I’d hit it off with that one lady I met in college but after I’d taken some time to heal from the separation and divorce from my ex-wife, that three or four months in the fall of 2010. Let’s call it just three months. That way, I don’t have to write anything unnecessary to explain how four months fit into one season, even though that shouldn’t really be much of a leap because I live in a state where winter has only recently been reduced to about five months—thanks to climate change.

Anyway, I had these few months in the fall of 2010—see, that works. I can just say “a few months” and save the space for more important details. So, I had those few months in the fall of 2010 to fall in love, over and over again.

It was difficult, at first. I had really been hurt by the separation and divorce. Several years before this there had been some low points that led me to seek treatment for my depression, but this pain was different. I was afraid to give myself fully to a relationship again, until I remembered that love was worth it (and, ultimately, until I had someone to show me how to just jump feet first into love again). But I did want to feel it again. I wanted to be close to someone again. So, feeling somewhat socially awkward about meeting chicks in the wild, I opened an account on Match.com.

I must say, checking out women on Match felt kind of creepy at first—about as creeping as calling it “checking out women on Match” makes it sound—but I soon realized that they were posting their profiles to introduce themselves to the area’s available gentlemen, not unlike I was doing for those ladies. So, I furthered the introductions with some messages and made some connections.

The first date I went on was a fine how-do-ya-do into the world of online dating for me. That first in-person meeting was at the Starbucks in the nearby Barnes & Noble, and she led with the questions.

“What’s your five-year plan?”

“My five-year plan?” I replied.

That’s right, she asked me what my five-year plan was. I had been rather secure in my job at the time and hadn’t been on a job interview in years. I had interviewed for a couple promotions at work, but the interview questionnaire they used didn’t include an inquiry into where I planned to be in five years. I definitely wasn’t ready for that question. Even if I’d had a friend try to prep me for that date, I don’t believe that my five-year plan would have even been on my radar.

"checking out women on Match felt kind of creepy at first"

All that I could think of was, I don’t know—in five years—be alive and stuff, maybe not live in a basement apartment. I managed to say something that seemed reasonable, but it clearly wasn’t a plan because I’d obviously just come up with it on the fly. One thing in that plan was to have a house, which I managed to move into with a few months to spare in those five years. It had nothing to do with that plan, but still, pretty impressive, whatever your name was.

My conversation with whatever-her-name-was was rather superficial. The coffee was fine. We didn’t have a second date. I was clearly not goal-oriented enough for her. No big deal. I do feel bad for her sometimes, though, for she missed an opportunity to get with all of this [gestures at all of this]. Poor her, but then I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

There were other dates, too. Mostly coffee and a chat, a few dinners. There were a couple women I had multiple dates with. These dates didn’t turn into a whole lot. It was soon hereafter that I reconnected with the woman I’d met in college and am not writing about in this story.

One woman, God bless her, sent me a picture of herself in her under-panties, and I sent her a picture of me in my boxers. Things escalated, and she sent me a picture to show me what her boobs looked like. Ultimately—at least as far as this aside goes—I sent her a type of picture that I’ve come to call a “low-angle selfie” (a much nicer name than “dick pic,” I think). These were very special moments between two consenting adults. I am somewhat loth to write of these special moments between this lady and myself, but the subject of low-angle selfies will be a big—no, “big” isn’t what I’m trying to say here—low-angle selfies will be an integral part of the story of my online loves. Only the discussion of them, of course—and naturally, only in a tasteful and hilarious way.

I have a strict “no unsolicited low-angle selfie policy” and a frequently narrowing interpretation of what “solicitation” means in this context. That being said, I do, regularly, send them as replies to spam text messages that suggest I may need some pharmaceutical assistance in that department. I just use them as a simple way to say, “Thank you, but no,” to my would-be friends in the boner pill logistics business.

But I digress.

Having coffee and dinner and showing each other pictures of what our nakedness looked like was all so much fun, but where was the love? I did find it, in-person, eventually, if only for a while, but I also found it there, on Match.com, in a subset of women who lived in the Bangor, Maine, area, but who, sadly enough, had temporarily relocated to Africa. Crazy timing, I know!

"I have a strict 'no unsolicited low-angle selfie policy'"

These were among the most beautiful women on Match in the Bangor area, well from the Bangor area. Life had just gotten in the way of us being able to meet in person. (I’m so unlucky in love!) But we were able to meet online, thankfully. And let me tell you, they fall in love fast. It was almost hard to believe, but then again, of course they’d fall in love with me that fast, just look once more at all this. [Gestures, once again, at all this.]

To be honest, I loved them, too. I loved how they were so open to having a future with me when we hadn’t ever met. I loved how I could say anything to them. I loved how they were honest about their situations and how they were open to me about their financial struggles, in Africa.

I gotta say, I felt bad for them, these young women from greater Bangor who just happened to actually be from Africa and how they were just trying to make it in this crazy world.

I knew what I had to do. I had to try and occupy some of their time, so that time wouldn’t be spent on some sucker who might actually send them money. Don’t get me wrong. I loved them; oh, I loved them. I loved them as a man can love a woman who’s pretending to be local and thereby scam him out of his money. That’s how much I loved them. That’s how much I always will.

There were a number of these women over the years, beginning with those few that fall, and not all of them found me on Match. I guess I just have a way of attracting hot chicks who need money. And before you worry, I do realize that there could have been men who were pretending to be local women who lived overseas. I just fell in love with the women part of the whatever it is this is called.

So, I’m going to have a few posts coming up about the attempts to catfish me and the fun I’ve had along the way. I hope you enjoy them.

This One Time I Should’ve Just Shut Up

Some of my posts here, if not just my most recent one, reveal that I care about doing the right thing. It’s also very important to me to speak up about injustices, those that are minor and those that affect us all. I don’t have to be impacted at all by the injustice—as a middle-aged white male, I’m unlikely to face much injustice in my life, especially in this country—but I will try to speak up for those who may face it in our country and abroad. I don’t really have a platform to make a difference on major issues. I certainly won’t help change minds by railing against those injustices in my elitist way on Facebook.

It’s better for me to engage these issues one-on-one and ask about what makes people think and feel a certain way. I know I’ve helped people individually open their eyes on certain issues. If I’m going to write about big, societal issues—and writing about them probably isn’t going to end up being my thing—I’m going to have to really give some consideration to whether my two-cents will actually make a difference. It probably won’t, especially with my relatively, um, low readership. (Start sharing these posts, folks!)

This leaves me with really only one serious option—especially for this space. That would be to stick to writing about what I know and love best, myself and my experiences. I could simply talk about my self all day. Should I start a podcast? Nah, as awesome as that would be—and as sweet as it would sound—I don’t think TedPod would have the reach that would make it worth my while. And I’m a much better writer than I am a raconteur, anyway. So, let me tell you about a time when I stood up and spoke my mind about hypocrisy in leadership.

 

We’ve all seen supervisors and manager who have exhibited some form of hypocrisy. (Ahem. . . as a former manager and supervisor, there, but for the grace of God, go I, and all that.) If you haven’t, well, I hope you enjoy your first job someday. It’s easy to dismiss someone as a hypocrite. There’s a lot of “do-as-I-say-not-as-do folks in positions of responsibility. It can really be a dilemma deciding whether you should approach one of these supervisors about what you may be perceiving as hypocritical.

Perhaps this person isn’t self-aware enough to realize that they’re demanding something from you that they aren’t, themselves, doing. Maybe they’ll thank you in front of everyone, shedding a tear as they realize how their inability to live up to the standard they’ve set has created an unhealthy tone for the organization. Maybe it’s created a hostile environment. Maybe there’s a lot of resentment out there, and people are just biding their time, waiting for an opportunity to move on.

But not anymore, because you’ve shown this leader that you’ve got moral courage. You’ve got gumption, kid. Moxie! And things are gonna be different from now on. We’re just going to give everyone the afternoon off, but that supervisor won’t take it off—well if only from active, direct supervision. That supervisor is going to stay in the office to reflect and maybe reread some books on leadership.

Or, possibly just as likely, that person is an asshole, and you done fucked up. You’re living under a microscope now, idiot!

One way to find out is the open-door policy. It’s a hallmark of American management. It may be a thing throughout Western Culture or even throughout the world, but I can only speak from my experience. This piece is, at best, unresearched. I have no idea if the Mercedes-Benz corporate offices in Stuttgart, Germany, have an open-door policy; or if the Cambodian sweatshop where the jeans I’m wearing were made has an open-door policy; or, I don’t know, if Osama Bin Laden had an open-door policy for Al Qaeda. I mean, sure, he was reportedly living in a cave for a while—so there was no “door” or whatever—but was he even approachable?

Anyway, open-door policies are an important leadership tool. Even if no one takes advantage of the policy, it shows—or at least gives the appearance—that the manager is open to feedback from the people on the front line, whether that “front line” is an assembly line in a factory, the sales department of an insurance office, or on the literal front lines in a combat unit.

I’ve taken advantage of open-door policies several times over the years. Usually, it’s been pretty casual—mostly in my civilian jobs. It’s generally just been constructive suggestions. But there was one time I used a first sergeant’s open-door policy when I was in the regular army. The situation seemed simple enough, if only because I was a foolish and young idealist.

The event that made me want to complain to, or rather, address an issue with the first sergeant happened during our battalion change of command in the summer of 1992—I think—in Crailsheim, Germany. The battalion, 5/2 ADA—the “Nickel-Deuce”—had a few days of practicing the pass in review bullshit, which was enough of a pain in the ass, on its own, without the added pressure of having to have things look perfect. Sure, it was a lieutenant colonel’s special day, but as a lower enlisted man at the time, I was not, how shall I put this, inspired to give a fuck.

Still, many of us, as professional soldiers, had no problem shining our boots and pressing our uniforms—those who’ve joined the army since 2006, enjoy your freedom from such drudgeries. Also, on such occasions, one had to blacken the eyelets on their LBE, their load-bearing equipment, the suspenders and pistol belt on which we carried canteens, ammo pouches, and other such tactical extrenea, for quick access.

The LBE had many brass eyelets, around drain holes in the ammo pouches and canteen covers, as well as every few inches around the pistol belt, for the hooks to connect the suspenders or other items. For a pass-in-review or a layout inspection, many people had a separate set of gear that they purchased new, for just such displays, so they would never have to worry about blackening all the brass parts with a Sharpie or, preferably, M’Nu—an old brand name for black out emblem refinisher that was perfect for such detail work.

Me, I didn’t feel like paying for all that shit, so I just used the gear that had been issued to me. I blackened the eyelets and clips and hooks and snaps and everything when the situation called for it, perhaps once every year or so. And then there, on the parade field in Crailsheim, as we prepared to line up for Lieutenant Colonel Parlier’s special day, we found one First Sergeant Arthur Kearney walking among us, looking over our uniforms and gear to make sure we were parade ready. He found one person in particular to call out, my friend, Private First Class—I’m pretty sure he was still PFC—Scott Garand.

Scott was a good guy—he still is. Now, he wouldn’t have been mistaken for a more aspirational soldier with a mind toward a longer career in uniform—like yours, truly—but he did his job. Lots of people enter the military to do their time and their jobs to get their education benefits, or whatever, and then get out. No big deal.

But why might I take issue with ol’ Top Kearney’s hounding of Scott? Surely, Scott knew what was expected of him on that day. Had he not made his own bed when his uniform wasn’t, as they say, squared away? Sure, but there was something that caught everyone else’s attention as Kearney berated Scott in front of all of us. It certainly wasn’t the unblackened brass on Scott’s gear. It was the nearly completely unblackened brass on Kearney’s.

I wasn’t surprised that a soldier would show-up after a week’s bitching about blackened eyelets without having put any effort into blackening a single goddamn eyelet. It was, however, rather surprising that the person who hadn’t squared his uniform away was the damn first sergeant who’d done literally all the bitching. Being squared away on shit like that is usually a foregone conclusion for most senior NCOs. That’s, like, their thing.

Seeing such a display of looking like a pile of shit (in a military sense), I took action. I had a Sharpie in my pocket, many of us did. It was common practice to touch-up the eyelets before such a parade; there was always someone who needed it. Usually though, it wasn’t the fucking first sergeant. So, I went right up by First Sergeant Kearney, held that Sharpie in the air, and started calling out, “Does anyone need a Sharpie? I’ve got a Sharpie, right here! Sharpie, anyone?”

Was that a little passive-aggressive? Yes, but it was also hilarious, and at that point, I had the sense not to call him out. Quite a few people noticed me announcing my willingness to share my Sharpie. Ol’ First Sergeant Kearney was not among them, apparently, for he went through the ceremony looking like that aforementioned pile of shit (in a military sense).

This, as you may have surmised, did not sit well with young Specialist Perrin, so I went to my section’s leaders, Sergeants Obluck, Barnhart, and Walker, and I explained to them that I felt Kearney’s display of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do leadership went beyond mere hypocrisy. Such a display, especially at Garand’s expense, was, in fact, bullshit. Obluck, Barnhart, and Walker, they agreed with me, and they had a suggestion for me to deal with it.

“Teddy,” they said—not in unison, of course, I just don’t remember who actually gave voice to the suggestion. And yes, they called me “Teddy.” We were rather informal in the Nickel Deuce Headquarters Battery Commo Section. “Teddy,” they said, “You should go talk to him under his open-door policy.” They assured me that he had always been fair with them. He had been a fairly good first sergeant leading up to this one notably hypocritical incident. Maybe he was a good guy, too, and maybe he was open to honest feedback from the troops under his charge. I mean, he had seemed pretty cool, at times.

I went forth to discover how cool he actually was. I found him outside the orderly room.

“Excuse me, first sergeant, can I speak with you for a minute? Sergeant Walker suggested that I talk to you under your open-door policy.” I’m not sure which name I used. I certainly didn’t say that all three had made the suggestion. I think Walker had seniority over the others, so I’ll just use his name. It’s not important.

“What is it, Specialist Perrin,” he replied.

So, I told him what it was. It hadn’t sat right with me that he’d singled out Garand, who was probably doing his best, especially when, he, as the first sergeant, hadn’t taken care of his own gear.

He paused for a moment and gave me a look. And would you believe that he apologized? “You know, I’m sorry, Perrin. I just get caught-up in all the work of being a first sergeant, and I sometimes forget that I’m a soldier first. I let you down. I let all the men in the battery down.” Here he paused and took a deep breath. “And I let Garand down, too. I let him down most of all. I think I’ll go to his supervisor right now to make sure he’s put in for his promotion. Thank you, Specialist Perrin. We need more men like you in this army, men with moral courage. Thank you so much. You’ll be one hell of an NCO someday.”

Would you believe that? I mean, you’ll probably believe just about anything I write, but I don’t understand why you’d believe that. It’s just not a TedBlog type of story. I did not find out that First Sergeant Kearney was “cool” or that he was a “good guy.” I found out that he was an “asshole.” He did, however, pause for a moment and give me a look, though.

But after that look, he proceeded to tear me a new one or go up one side and down the other. Pick whatever metaphor you want. He gave me a dressing down. He put me in my place. Whatever. I was definitely failing to see the merits of approaching him under his open-door policy.

He explained to me that I did not know his job, nor did I see what he did with his time. Blah-blah-blah and on and on for a few minutes, closing with a warning that I’d better watch myself because he would be watching me. Whatever I did, I’d better be right, for when I ultimately messed up, I would surely regret it.

One, immediate regret was that I hadn’t asked Walker or one of the other NCOs to come with me. When I went back to the section, they all had a good laugh. “Dam, Teddy, that’s fucked up. I guess it wasn’t such a good idea to go see him under his open-door policy.” No, it was not. And no, I don’t think they set me up. I think they honestly thought he wasn’t that bad.

But here’s the thing, see. Although fucking Art Kearney claimed that I did not “see what he did with his time,” I had, in fact, seen what he did with his time. Everyone on the post saw what he did with his goddamn time. This motherfucker had an off-duty job delivering pizzas for the PX. That’s what he did with his time. Me, being a relatively quick learner, I did not explain to him that, yes, I had actually seen what he did with his time. I just had to fume for a while and bide my time.

A couple of weeks later some friends and I were drinking in the barracks, and we decided to order some pizza. This guy named Art delivered it. I was still stinging from the rebuke, and I bristled at his cheerful greeting. After he left, we realized that there was a mistake in our order. I don’t remember who called the PX about the error, but I clearly remember telling him to “Let ‘em know that Art guy fucked it up.”

You’d think having at least half a brain and having been warned, that I’d use that half-brain and not fuck up under Kearney’s watch. Nope. Six months or so later, I missed a Friday evening formation. That wasn’t the fuck-up. I think I’d been on some kind of “run” or whatever for work or something. I don’t remember. I do remember the staff duty runner waking me up early Saturday morning because I was late for my duty doing headcount at the mess hall. I guess the new duty roster had been announced during that Friday formation. Oops.

During Monday morning’s formation Kearney announced that I had to see him afterward—not that I could truly see him, for I was a specialist, and therefore, unqualified—he told me that I was his the next Saturday. Fine. I accepted my fate.

I’m not going to say I was disappointed, but he must have forgotten to be laser-focused on his vengeance for my impertinence during one of his tours of duty delivering pizza. The extra duty that weekend was just sitting outside his stupid office writing an essay about accountability or some bullshit like that. He just kept me there for a few hours and then barely glanced at my work. I was free after a quick, “You wanna be an NCO, Perrin, you gotta be responsible for knowing where you’re supposed to be and being there on time.”

“Roger that, first sergeant,” and I was done. Luckily, I was generally a decent soldier, so he had time to chill before I made a mistake, so even more luckily (luckilier?), his bark had been worse than his bite.

If I could tell Art one thing—and I’m sure he wouldn’t remember me now if he couldn’t even remember my faux pas long enough for me to really regret calling him out—I’d tell him that I didn’t mean anything I wrote in that essay. It was definitely not heartfelt, and I’ve been chronically late for just about everything since I left the regular army, probably as some kind of subconscious “fuck you” to that Art guy.

On the other hand, though, I sure as hell learned something about open-door policies. I mean, I didn’t completely forsake them. I’ve had supervisors and managers that I could genuinely communicate and be honest with. I’ve also had some that definitely would not have been pleased with honest feedback. For the most part, I’ve known who was who. That being said, I’ve generally avoided giving any supervisor or manager any feedback that they might take too personally before my final review has been signed. That just makes good sense.

So, yeah, be careful of those open-door policies. That door may open to an asshole. But be especially careful if the person opening that door has just finished publicly announcing—before all their charges—that they are an incredibly hypocritical asshole. Such an asshole does not want your feedback.