fandomhigh | Living With Difficult Women [Tuesday, Period 5]

Max was frowning slightly as he walked into class. That fog seemed somehow out of place. Especially given the whole 'otherwise decent afternoon' part of the day. He also kept getting that itching-between-his-shoulder blades feeling. He was probably over-thinking things. And, anyway, he had a class to teach.

"Last week we talked a bit about having difficult women in subordinate positions. Some of you," like Arthur, "have experience with this, but it seemed that most of you didn't. This is probably because you're all young, and that means you don't tend to have anyone in subordinate positions. But that's going to change. Even if some of you don't seek out positions of leadership, you'll find yourself in situations where you're in charge anyway." Max wasn't sure why he looked pointedly at Mat. It just felt like the right thing to do here.

"One of the ironies of having a difficult woman under your command is that they tend to respond extremely poorly to direct applications of authority. Even if they acknowledge that you're an expert in your field and deserve a position of leadership, if you actually point this out they seem to be incapable of going along with what you say. If you're lucky you'll find yourself dealing with someone who will merely complain as they actually do what needs to be done, but it's not uncommon to find yourself in an argument over something obvious simply because the person you're talking to can't hear orders without objecting to them."

"If you find yourself in an emergency situation of some sort, you might be lucky enough to have a competent difficult woman under your command." There was an unusually high concentration of them in Fandom. "If this is the case you can generally get away with issuing orders, and actually having them followed for the course of the emergency. Of course you'll have to deal with backlash later, but doesn't tend to be all that much worse with what you usually have to deal with anyway. If you are lucky enough to have competent difficult women under your command not only will they tend to listen during emergencies," well, sometimes, "but they'll also be competent, and that means that they'll be a big help in dealing with whatever it is you have to deal with."

Max's lip twitched slightly as he imagined the group in front of him in some sort of emergency situation. They'd probably handle it pretty well, all told.

"But not all difficult women are competent. In fact, they seem to have roughtly the same ratio of competent to incompetent as any other group of people you'll meet." Which, considering how many incompetent people there were in the world... "If this is the case, then the best you can hope for is a situation in which you can simply ignore them. If you don't need them to help, then it's generally worth trying to work around them completely. The headache of trying to get them to contribute just isn't worth the minimal benefits of succeeding. Unfortunately, this isn't always an option. If, for instance, the building is on fire and you need to evacuate quickly, you can't just ignore the people who are a pain to deal with."

"One technique that often helps when dealing with difficult women, whether they're competent or not, is putting them in positions of authority. If they feel like they're in control of something, they tend to respond better to being told what to do since they can, in turn, make decisions and give orders. If you're dealing with someone competent, you can even put them in a position of actual authority and rely on them to do a good job of taking care of business. If you're unfortunate enough to have someone incompetent, then your best bet is to come up with a position that sounds important but doesn't actually matter all that much. You'll want to make it sound important, but don't leave them in control of anything you care about since their incompetence will probably end up getting it lost or destroyed or something."

"You should avoid using this sort of fake authority technique on competent women because they tend to be smart enough to pick up on what you're doing, and then they'll be even more difficult than usual." No one liked having their intelligence insulted, after all.

"Now it's activity time. Split up into pairs and each of you take turns playing out the roles we've talked about today. Try to draw on your experience with difficult women, both good and bad, to help you act appropriately. We're trying to help people get better at this, so the more realistic you can make things, the better. Now get to it."

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"Well, yeah," she acknowledged. She liked playing house; she wasn't actually ins.... okay, clerk turning into dinosaur. Maybe she shouldn't finish that thought. "But it's part of the deal, that you pretend. You're taking care of a baby, you give it a name."

"But I'm not planning to have a baby for years yet," Arthur groused, eying the thing. "If you have to call it something..."

Arthur trailed off.

Oh, that thought wasn't weird at all. To chase it and the pointless speculation that went with it away, Francine said, "We can't call it Merlin. That's what Karla and I named ours."

"And why would I call it Merlin?" he scoffed. "Give it a good, manly name. Uther the second, perhaps, or Bedwyr..."

Francine used every ounce of self-control she possessed and did not say I'm not naming a child after your father; I have too many associations with wanting to SMACK THE CRAP out of someone with that name.

What she did say was, "Right, then. Arthur Junior it is."

"Junior?" Arthur asked, because he wasn't about to disparage his own name. "Might as well leave that off. Although he is going to be a small hump of metal for the rest of his life..."

"You're gonna give him a height complex." Which wasn't at all hereditary. "It could be worse than Junior. We went with Wee Merlin for ours."

"Honestly, I don't really care what you call it, as long as you know how to nurse it," he said, "Illyria and I aren't... equipped... for it."

Looking down was instinctive. So was looking back up at Arthur like he was a few fries short of a McMooby Meal.

"You do know they don't actually... you know, right? They come with a bottle."

"Yes," Arthur said, gesturing at the baby. "That."

"Bottle. Mouth. B---" Why was she trying to explain this to him again? "Never mind. Give me the carrier."

Arthur was more than happy to shove it in her general direction. "Thank you."

... No, seriously, this required it.

Katchoo would rag him about it for a week. Francine just said, "You're welcome."

Well, that and, "You better come back and get him before he graduates. Katchoo and I can't afford to send ourselves to college, let alone your son."

Edited 2010-03-24 06:33 (UTC)

Arthur blinked. For once, he picked the relevant bit out of that sentence. "She said she didn't want to go."

Francine blinked right back at him. "She did? I mean... she talked to you about that? We haven't even really." Hunh. Yes, she would stick with hunh and not go off into a mope that he apparently knew more about Katchoo than she did. He kind of always had, in some respects. "I don't know. Maybe she doesn't."

Arthur sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "If this was about money..."

"I don't know," Francine repeated, not frustrated exactly, just one more off thing on top of today's big pile of off. "It's not like she has any, but she's also Katchoo, you know? I'd love to see her get to go to art school or something, because she's good, but that doesn't mean she wants to."

"...I still have reserves here, Francine," he said, continuing his original plan for that sentence. "I mean, I don't know if I'll be here or in Camelot come graduation, but there's plenty."

"...Of people to defend the island?"

What? Reserves.

Arthur shot her an abbreviated version of the how stupid are you look, before sighing, and saying, "Of money."

Hey now. He knew exactly how stupid she was. He didn't need to give her looks.

She took another beat to adjust the baby's bottle, which she'd fished out of the bassinet, then gave him he how crazy are you look. "For college? You really have no concept of where 'crazy generous' turns into 'no seriously, you need treatment' do you?"

Arthur shrugged a bit. "How much is it?" he asked, "I've got a few million, and I doubt it'll be much use if I return to Camelot."

"It's pretty exp-- million?" Yes, okay, he could afford to whisk people off for ridiculous vacations, but...buh?

"The bank said something about inflation," Arthur supplied, helpfully.

"I thought that made things more expensive." Because of course the medieval prince would know more than she did about modern economics.

Re: The lecture

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