"Lets Me Do My Thing!": The Mystery of Alyssa G. and Her (Un)Broken English

It's been obvious for a long time that the internet and social media in particular has brought out every form of kook, conspiracy theorist, and beyond-the-fringe nutjob with their own idiotic take on the world. On my Facebook page, for example, fans are thrilled to have located the creator of Megaton Man, a comic book series they enjoyed as a teenager, but their very next post is how I'm a libtard for not caring about John Podesta's emails.

But I wasn't quite aware how far this mass insanity has spread until last week, when I came across one self-styled social commentator bold enough and ignorant enough to have made up his own grammatical rules to fit his conspiratorial world view, one in which evil corporations are not only taking over his personal Matrix but trying to staff fast-food restaurants with grammar-challenged immigrants.

What sparked his ire was a particular job recruitment poster he saw at McDonald's somewhere in the northeastern corridor of the United States. In it, a young girl, presumably of Latino ethnicity named "Alyssa G." and clearly enjoying her day off in a pink tanktop and blue yoga pants (and presumably listening to an NPR podcast on her device), declares, "Today my job let me do my thing."

"Today my job let me do my thing." It's called the past tense. But to Our Social Commentator, it's a conspiracy not only to recruit and exploit minorities, but also a sinister plot to spread "broken English." (Also Spanish, since this version of the poster is bilingual; so much for McDonald's secret scheme to appeal to Latinos, which Our Social Commentator is convinced he has single-handedly uncovered!)

Our social commentator created a video of this, with a very creative three-minute handheld shot of the poster affixed inside the glass door of a busy McDonald's. While we get seasick watching this cinema verite image, he reads the tagline from the poster over and over again, slowly, in a mock-Hispanic cadence, convincing himself that "my job LET me do my thing" is "broken English." Not only is McDonald's Corporation, in his view, intentionally appealing to Latinos from "down south" to come north and work for them for less than a liveable wage (and take away gainful employment from "legal" American citizens, as he repeatedly asserts), but they are also encouraging bad grammar.

Of course, "Today my job let me do my thing" is perfectly correct written English, grammatically speaking. It's called the past tense. "Today my boss let me have the day off; I went for a jog and listened to itunes; I did my thing rather than salt french fries or stand for eight hours at the take-out window. Today my job let me do my thing."

(One could, arguably, insert a comma after "Today." "Today, my job let me do my thing." But why quibble?)

Not only is Our Social Commentator an illiterate stooge, he's also an inept cameraman with no sense of artistic composition. Technology enables such mental mediocrities to seem reasonable and "part of the conversation."

Presumably her job didn't let her do her thing yesterday; maybe tomorrow it won't either. Maybe she'll have to go in to work tonight and perform oral sex on her (white male) boss to get the day off she wants next week (the comments on Our Social Commentator's video posting make even worse misogynistic, racist, and hateful remarks about "Alyssa G.," believe me). But today, her job let her do her thing.

Our social commentator, however, insists that his willful misreading of the phrase amounts to "broken English," and demands for the sake of Civilization that the word "let" be corrected with an "s" on the end, so as to read "lets." "Today my job lets me do my thing" would be his amended phrase.

However, "Today my job lets me do my thing" makes no grammatical sense whatsoever. In the simple present tense, which is what "lets" is, her job would have to let her do her thing every day, not just today. "My job lets me do my thing everyday." In fact, McDonald's already has a variation of this recruitment poster that reads, "My McJob lets me do my thing."

"My McJob lets me do my thing." Since the letting isn't confined to just today, it's also perfectly correct grammar. It's called the simple present tense.

Presumably this applies not only to today but everyday.

The only way "Today my job lets me do my thing" would make grammatical sense is if the person speaking were a senior citizen. "Fifty years ago, I had to work sixteen hours a day in a coal mine. But today my job lets me do my thing. That's because I'm basically retired and sit around all day sipping coffee in a McDonald's." In other words, "today" would have to mean "nowadays." And it is hard to imagine how a young woman going for a job on her day off would be using the word "today" in that sense.

McDonald's also has a recruitment poster with two other imaginary employees. "Join our team," it announces. One employee, a woman in a blazer, chirps, "Today my job got me promoted to general manager." A second, a hardworking student, says, "Today my job got me two credits closer to my degree." The third, our lovely Alyssa G., repeats her familiar tagline, "Today my job let me do my thing."

Which phrase is in broken English? That's a trick question, because all are perfectly grammatically correct. "Today my job past tense." Written communication never ceases to amaze!

Which of those phrases are "broken English"? Answer: none of them! They are all perfectly grammatically correct. It's called the past tense.

I commented on Our Social Commentator's handheld video clip. I wrote, "You're quite the grammarian. The phrase is perfectly correct as is."

His response was, "No it wasn't, asshole."

Now, a phrase is either grammatically correct or it isn't; it's not a question of is or wasn't.

Which leads me to think not only that Our Social Commentator (who is a self-professed Right-Wing bigot, I should mention, in case that wasn't already clear) is inventing "broken English" in commercial messages where none exists to suit his conspiratorial world view; he also seems to have a serious learning disability (possibly dyslexia), which prevents him from recognizing and distinguishing verb tenses in written English.

No doubt, McDonald's knows who they want to appeal to with their recruitment posters. And maybe they do want to staff their counters and drive-through windows with underpaid illegal immigrants just to fuck up my man Commentator's Extra Value Meal order. But I think it's safe to say that McDonald's Corporation, or its advertising creators, at least know the correct usage of present and past tenses.

In a world of ignoramuses with smart phones, subscriber channels, and silo thinking that is impervious even to objective Standard English usage, that is some reassurance at least.

Time was when hate-mongers, crazies, and other morons who shouldn't be let out on their own recognizance had to resort to cutting letters out of magazines (to compose ransom notes), or had to type out their ramblings (chain letters and other documents of their delusion) on portable typewriters, replete with misaligned text and worn-out ribbons. Such communication, on its face, looked amateurish; it was invalidated and dismissed by minds of average intelligence a priori.

Nowadays, slick technology comes with designer fonts, automatic alignments, and reasonably professional results, even if the operator doesn't know how to hold their smartphone still long enough to make their ignorant assertions. To discern the lies and insanity from legitimate communication requires of us, more than ever, critical thinking. That, and a sharp eye for detail. Luckily, the shitheads still give themselves away because the elements of basic grammar will always elude them.

"Leaves me alone and lets me do my thing!" Okay, pal.

Independence Day: Celebrating Non-Conformity

Names have been omitted to maintain an aura of confidentiality. If you can connect the dots, you know too much. Plausible deniability is truth. If the shoe fits, for God's sake, don't continue running around barefoot over sharp tacks.

At the beginning of this past spring break, I posted a series of remarks on social media about some of my quite recent graduate school and college teaching experiences, as well as some general observations on academia and my chosen discipline. By their very nature, these random and in some cases nearly incoherent remarks neglected to dwell on the many wonderful and positive experiences I have enjoyed over more than a decade of college, and my deep appreciation and gratitude for the opportunity—and amounted to little more than letting off a portion of the steam that had built up over various irritations and perceived injustices I felt during that period of time. Initially, I had only intended to make a single snarky quip or two concerning a recent development that had stuck in my craw; but one remark led to another, and another, and another, and within no time I had compiled myself quite a little diatribe. Since no more than a handful of social media acquaintances (none from my immediate academic environment) had offered their comments on this thread, I convinced myself that the conversation had remained private and of no interest to anyone besides those who had directly participated. In any case my remarks would have made little sense to few outside of an immediate workplace circle, since after all no names had been used, and the situations described could have only been recognized by a handful of coworkers (and perhaps in the abstract by a few outsiders who were in some way acquainted with analogous stresses and irritations of university life). Still, in reading back the postings the following day, I decided that in their rough, stream-of-consciousness form, replete with certain rhetorical exaggerations and more than a few unkind characterizations of the name-withheld variety, were not fit to be left dangling in cyberspace, so I completely deleted them. Having successfully purged myself of a good bit of pent-up negative energy, I promptly forgot the entire incident and enjoyed the rest of my spring break, relaxing and preparing for the final month of school. No harm done—or so I thought.

An irrelevant cartoon from seventeen years ago (my lucky number).

Alas—the following Monday, much to my horror, I learned that some person or persons (whose identity remains both completely unknown and utterly irrelevant to me) had observed the thread, cut, pasted and converted it into a PDF, and circulated it (reportedly) to “everyone” in my department. My remarks, in other words, had gone “viral” among an inconceivably small and inbred group that included friends, colleagues, advisors, and even a teacher’s aide, few of whom hitherto had ever so much as “liked” any of my other social media postings, and none of whom apparently held me in high enough regard to tip me off that my remarks had become the subject of departmental scrutiny and discussion. Imagine Martin Luther’s embarrassment had his rough and nearly incoherent notes for the ninety-nine theses been leaked before he could realize a more refined, final draft and you’ll understand something of my chagrin on stylistic grounds alone. But of course, the story does not end there.

As classes resumed the following week, I was summoned to the department office to be called on the carpet. My ersatz social media musings—which had been made virtually, off-campus, on my own computer and utilizing my own internet connection—had been deemed, quite arbitrarily, an appropriate and material workplace issue (this after a long history of ignoring complaints I had made concerning actual, non-virtual workplace behaviors—observed with my own eyes and experienced first-hand). Options such as mandatorily-sentenced therapy, the withholding of future letters of recommendation (just as I was beginning my crucial post-departmental job search), the launching of personal defamation lawsuits, and even summary firing were all discussed matter-of-factly as very real possibilities, as though any or all of the above (or threats of retaliation in general) would have only been perfectly reasonable and understandable coming from those who presumed to call themselves scholars. Indeed, the only reason I agreed to meet was out of a genuine concern that my 130 undergraduate students would have had to suffer replacement instructors for the last few weeks of class—a reckless and destructive action I was convinced the powers-that-be were in spiteful enough of a mood to take.

“This stuff is out there,” I was told repeatedly, as if the deleted thread contained nuclear secrets that would eventually and inevitably fall into terrorist hands (ironic that those who profess an admiration for Edward Snowden or Julian Assange have a very different take on the free flow of opinion when it concerns far more mundane matters closer to home). My remarks, only briefly posted on the internet, had a life of their own, or so the reasoning went—a trope conveniently denying the willful agency of those who had, for whatever motives, consciously cut, pasted, and circulated those postings to colleagues, who had indeed “pushed” them even to those who were not customarily online nor otherwise paying any attention to my social media persona. To underscore the gravity of my predicament, I was reminded of certain policies prohibiting the use of university equipment and networks to circulate materials that could potentially be, among other things, defamatory or in violation of copyright—a complete irrelevancy since, as I said above, I had used neither university equipment nor networks to offer my remarks, but posted at home using my own personal computer with my own internet connection. On the other hand, the person or persons who had cut and pasted my copyrighted postings, probably with the goal of defaming me (it would not have been the first time such a thing had happened in my experience in this happy, collegial environment) and almost certainly by utilizing university equipment, networks, and email addresses to distribute them, had violated this particular policy on several counts—an irony no doubt completely lost on the powers-that-be.

In point of fact, my original remarks were no longer “out there” at all. Of my own volition, long before I was even aware that any colleague had seen them, I had deleted the thread from my social media page and expunged it entirely from the internet, although presumably the PDF still resides on several offline personal hard drives (I have in my possession only a blurred print-out passed along to me by a fourth or fifth party). Little of the contents of my original remarks bears repeating, least of all verbatim, and I am not going to do so now. Consequently, unless you participated in or happened to have seen the thread when it was live online, you will have to take my word for it when I characterize them as the stuff of typical profane griping of the sort commonly overheard in any after-working-hours bar, all but meaningless outside the context of the long-running private conversations in which they originated. In other words, it is material that could only cause harm if intentionally pirated by tattle-tales and magnified by malice, and then only to the extent to which any given remark may have hit a truthful nerve or two (in other words, if the shoe fits, wear it). On the other hand, if you only happen to have read the pirated PDF or learned of its contents through third parties, please be advised that you are culpable in an extremely tawdry conspiracy and paradoxically cannot admit any acquaintance at all with what I’m talking about—let alone feign outrage—without confessing to your own monumental lapse of ethics. In any case, you hardly count as my friend or colleague any more—but only you would know that, not I. Nota bene.

This Stasi-like behavior—the secret surveillance, informancy, scrutiny of furtively obtained materials, “telling mommy” and bidding her to take action, to say nothing of the subsequent shunning and other career repercussions I have had to endure since—needless to say, is in itself far worse than anything I could have asserted in my initial posted remarks or even have dreamt of alleging. The entire incident—from the oppressive environment prohibiting any form of criticism to the repressive actions taken as a consequence—speaks to the dysfunctional and poisonous culture that prompted their expression in an uncontrollable and unconstructive outburst in the first place. Although these actions do not retroactively affirm any of my individual complaints explicitly, they certainly do nothing to dispel them, and tend rather to generally confirm their validity—at least as topics that should be discussed and debated among fair-minded friends. In any case, it is utterly reprehensible behavior, especially coming from a group of individuals who presume to call themselves educators, and most of whom, individually if not collectively, I continue to hold in high esteem (including those who, it pains me to think, conferred upon me my degrees). It speaks volumes about the curious phenomenon in which erudite and enlightened individuals—in this case those of whom in their own scholarship, classroom teaching, and committee advising demonstrate openness, honesty, collaboration, and a willingness to transgress almost any boundary for the sake of critical inquiry—can devolve collectively into an expedient affiliation based on little more than careerism and self-seeking: autocratic, authoritarian, intolerant of dissent, demanding of absolute conformity at all costs, to say nothing of the blatant violations of university policy, principles of academic freedom, and simple human decency that are in abundant evidence here.

I alluded to this matter in another posting on this blog, and was reminded of it recently when I came across this commentary on the I Ching reading, number 13 (a fateful number for me), T’ung Jên/Fellowship with Men, in which the six in the second place reads, “Fellowship with men in the clan. Humiliation.” Of this, Wilhelm Baynes remarks,

There is a danger here of formation of a separate faction on the basis of personal and egotistic interests. Such factions, which are exclusive and, instead of welcoming all men, must condemn one group in order to unite the others originate from low motives and therefore lead in the course of time to humiliation.*

The “one group” in this case are the dissenters, non-conformists, and heretics who cannot keep their mouths shut, some of whom have been among our most valuable educators.

*Wilhelm Baynes, The I Ching or Book of Changes, trans. Cary F. Banes (Princeton University Press, 1950/1967), p. 57.