Mr. Knight: My Puzzling Life Coach

In a few weeks we can celebrate the 21st birthday of one of Bobby Knight’s more unfortunate comments. During an interview with NBC’s Connie Chung, he said, “I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.” He seemed to immediately recognize his mistake and tried to explain that he wasn’t actually talking about the act of rape: “But what I’m talking about is, something happens to you, so you have to handle it—now.” But it was too late for explanations. His poor word choice took on a life of its own, and caused further damage to his image, and embarrassed his employer, Indiana University.

I remember trying to make the rape comment make sense when he said it. Surely, if raped, my impulse would be to fight back. Wouldn’t it? But what if some rational part of my mind took control of the situation and assured me that there was in fact enjoyment to be had during this attack? Would that be a good thing, a kind of self-preservation defense mechanism? Or would it be detrimental to my survival? Coming from a man who doesn’t seem to know about relaxing and enjoying much at all, this comment and explanation puzzled me.

And continues to puzzle me.

Like all good puzzles, this one has taken up residence in my mind and occasionally my mind will take it down and toy with it for awhile. During a recent drama at work I thought about it quite a bit. I’m not going to thoroughly describe the work drama yet, even though it’s a story that will undoubtedly interest you. For now, you can picture your own unpleasant workplace scenario.

Mine involved a variety of challenging characters and their sometimes disturbing behaviors. Did he just take off his shirt a second time? Why was that child given two slices of bread and some peanut butter for lunch when those adults just helped themselves to complete meals? Did she just growl “titties” in my ear? Is that really an affair or technically just a “special bond”? If someone aggressively breaks the please-be-quiet chimes, can peace truly be achieved? Did that one use the N-word during the inauguration? Am I the only one who cares about this stuff? Bleh.

Many days when I’d be near-tears over something I was seeing, Bobby Knight’s relax-and-enjoy-it comment would come to mind. Clearly, I couldn’t change my co-workers or how they behaved. All I could do was find a way to cope with them. So for months I did that. I’d squash down my concerns and focus on the clock, waiting for the end of my shift. Or I’d distract myself by focusing all my attention on an enjoyable part of my job.

While these tactics worked for the duration of my workday, they didn’t help me away from work. Away from work I had all sorts of things to think about, yet I was fixated on the work drama. Nothing my husband said was as interesting as my co-workers’ misdeeds, so I only wanted to talk about them. For awhile, everyone I spoke to heard snippets of the big story. Like a new crush that dominates all your thoughts, these buffoons dominated mine. And like a bad smell on your hand that you keep sniffing just to confirm that it’s still there and it still stinks, I kept replaying events and conversations in my head even though I knew they’d make me mad.

So, deciding that just maybe Mr. Knight was wrong and that if you’re raped you need to fight back with everything you have, I set about to change the situation. I spoke to my supervisor. Nothing happened. I spoke to her supervisor, nothing happened. I spoke to another supervisor and was assured that everything that needed to be addressed had been addressed, but I couldn’t see that anything had changed. I resigned, but in frustration, I went yet one step higher up the ladder of command. This time I found a sympathetic manager who listened to my whole story. He led me to believe that things would finally change. I felt encouraged. But in the meantime, in my last two weeks at work, things got worse. (Yes, it was possible to make them worse.) I was getting the silent treatment. No one was helping me. It was grim and tense, but I survived.

So, which technique was more effective?

I want to say that addressing the problem was the right thing to do. I saw problems, I reported problems, and now I’m waiting for the system to appropriately deal with the problems. I want to say that having fought back, I am content.

But so far, I still can’t tell that anything’s changed. You see, I wasn’t able to make a clean break. I’ve still got reasons to go back once a week, twice a week, sometimes three times. And every visit makes me sad and angry. It appears my employer has not addressed any of my concerns. My ex-coworkers are still there acting the same. And I’m not working.

I guess I can’t answer the question yet. I hope that the answer eventually will become clear and I’ll be able to put the matter to rest.