The Lies People Tell You About Me
I recently learned that a anti-vaccine person was spreading an interesting rumor about be online. This person, whom we will name “Jenny,” wrote in an open forum on Facebook that I was fired from a previous job for saying “awful things” online. She wrote this as she circulated a screen capture of my LinkedIn profile where I openly mention where I am working. She said she was surprised that I would share the name of my employer because, again, she thinks that I was fired for saying “awful things.”
Sigh.
I think it’s kind of funny that I need to remind people over and over that I am not very anonymous with who I am and what I do for a living. If anything, I think I might be sharing too much. (A colleague of mine told me that she worried I wouldn’t be able to get a job after the doctoral degree because I wouldn’t be able to get security clearance.) Although, as some of you have noticed, I don’t share too much about Baby Ren, which is mostly because she has not consented to me sharing pictures of her. (So I get around that by using “faceless portraits” of her.)
Of course, this is not the only lie people have told about me. Back when I was living in Texas, my aunt was convinced that I was the one encouraging one of her sons to drink to excess. I was the black sheep, she said. The truth is that her son would go across the border to Mexico, where the legal drinking age is 18, and he would get plastered all on his own. It was his way of escaping from the realities of his life, I think. Because I was the one he’d call to come get him and drive him back home — on the occasions he found himself without a way to get back — I was named as the person making him drink. Talk about an post how ergo prompter hoc situation, right?
(Would it surprise you that the branch of the family they belong to has become ardently anti-vaccine lately?)
Back in college, we were assigned a hematologic cancer to study and present in a poster competition. Because I didn’t know a lot about leukemia, I went to the pathologist at one of the laboratories where I was doing my practicum and asked her for help. She patiently sat with me in a dual microscope and showed me all the slides she had on all the known leukemias. She showed me the differences between the cells and all the indicators of what made a cell cancerous. Then, at the end, she allowed me to print some photographs of the slides we looked at.
Well, that didn’t go over to well with this one dude in my cohort. He kept whispering to my other colleagues that I had not done any of the work, that the pathologist had done it for me. He did this as we were presenting the posters, too. I finally had enough of it and loudly told him to go tell the professors if he thought that I had cheated. I even asked one of the professors to come over and listen to him. It was one thing to spread gossip, it would be another for him to back it up with evidence and make a formal accusation. He didn’t. He told me to calm down and backed away slowly. It was comical.
It should not surprise you that I grab the bull by the horns.
No, dear readers, I do not do 99.9% of the things people accuse me of doing. The remaining 0.1% can be attributed to mere stupidity, or grumpiness, and I know very well when to apologize. I’m an adult, and I don’t have time for games. Just like with the anti-vaccine activists who accuse me of all sorts of things, anyone lying about me is quickly confronted and told to produce the evidence or shut up. In essence, “poop or get off the pot.” Ain’t nobody got time for that.
EpidemioLogical 
I envy that tutorial session! I’d also be asking on slide prep, as that still is an area that I’m weak on.
Odd, as I can prepare multiple specimens for a TEM for viewing, hell, did that in junior high school, my understanding of the physics has only improved.
What shocks me is, someone (I assume, being cohort) wanting to become an epidemiologist wants to consider him or herself a superior expert to a researcher in the field of leukemia. Thereby disparaging a subject matter expert, in favor of I don’t know, beads and rattles, perhaps?
Frankly, I’d have asked him to show me the hairy cell leukemia, then the naked singularity leukemia, barbing when challenged as to the latter’s existence, that he should recognize a peer. A black hole, lacking even the character of an event horizon.
As for the cousin with an ethanol abuse, transnational border problem, I’d have early on alerted the first noisemaker to go pick his sodden arse up and haul it across the border as toxic waste. At 03:00, each time after.
Reminding her, *I* did not drive him there, but I have a very good idea who drove him to drink…
For some odd reason, the Department of State never wanted to retain my services.
Probably, due to my own familial mischief makers, who made an unfounded accusation and I accurately displayed their known prior sins, before growing ever so holier than the Almighty in their dotage.
One elder cousin, granted “aunt” due to age, accusing me of abandoning my father when I was deployed to a fscking war, I reminded all listeners of that fact by apologizing for not overthrowing our government and simply obeying military orders and her abandonment of her husband and children, thankfully, didn’t count, because she picked up a bible so late in her life.
And I do happen to know where every skeleton is, inside of specifically which closet, within the family. They either confided in me or my parents at some point. And my parents and I already knew what kind of back stabbers that part of the family are, the respectable members, save my parents, who remained local, to help when needed, staying distant otherwise, moved distant to this coast.
Oddly, I have had far nicer dealings with very real terrorists.
So, that cohort, were I in your shoes and I finally lost patience, would’ve likely been on suicide watch, my insisting upon it. Because, I’d poke holes mercilessly into his presentation, theories and character, in a few sentences.
But, with my experience, I’d likely have predicted and laid an additional trap to further underestimate me.
At the end, I’d just get another peer to coach.
Help a man con learn to catch a fish, help one of you find a meal. Teach that same man how to fish well, feed a community and with luck and guidance, lead a community well.
Teach the SOB how to arid area farm, gain a community, if not that individual’s love.
In that, short term gains, vs long term gains.
After all, you might find that idiot Peter Principled up, to be prejudiced against the only good path out of a major epidemic, due to a memory.
The only times I’ve burned potential bridges was when the path lead to hell. 😉
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