The Adversity Of Diversity

I just got back from having completed a full day of “diversity training” as is mandated by management.
There are a couple of positive things I can say about it, such as it wasn’t just a dry, boring recitation of applicable laws, nor was it a sort of touchy-feely guide to political correctness.
Even so, it made for a long day, especially considering that the instructor kept us in class far too long before giving us our first break.
As for the instructor, he seemed like a nice enough guy and was fairly engaging, but let’s just say that it came as no surprise that he kept coming back to sexual orientation when citing examples.
That he was southern only served to make him seem even more gay.
But whatever.
The interesting thing about the class is that Scott, Brian, and I, along with the two other guys in the class, were totally outnumbered by women.
Even more interesting was the fact that, while they weren’t all hotties, they were, for the most part, all fairly decent looking.
One of them looked very familiar in some fashion.  I finally figured out who she reminded me of, and then remembered that the person in question – someone we work with – has a sister who also works for our company, so during one of our breaks I asked her if they were, in fact, sisters, which they actually were.
Small world, I guess.
As part of “getting to know each other” we all had to introduce ourselves, say what we do, how long we’ve been with the company, say what comes to mind when we think of diversity, and reveal something about ourselves that people wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at us.
(My revelation was that I like to cook)
One person, though, revealed that, via Weight Watchers, she had lost more than 50 pounds after having been obese most of her life.
Honestly, that didn’t surprise me, as there were just some visual cues about the way she looks now that indicated how she might have looked then.
(For the record, none of what follows is intended to be cruel, it just some of the more noteworthy of today’s observations)
If you’ve ever seen the movie The Craft, you may remember (you will definitely remember if you’re a guy, and straight) that Neve Campbell played a girl who was always bundled up as much as possible to cover up serious scarring (from being burned, if I recall correctly), and was terribly shy, but once she used magic to remove her scars, she underwent a metamorphosis, and, like a butterfly coming out of its cocoon, she spread her wings for all to see.
Which is to say that she started wearing the least amount of clothing possible, which is the part that guys will remember.
It would appear to be a similar circumstance with the woman in class today, as she was wearing an extremely short and skimpy skirt.
(She works in the same building as Kathleen, who confirmed that she’s always dressed in skimpy outfits)
The major difference in this comparison, though, is that with Neve, this was a good thing.
With this woman, not so much.
Basically, she’s only really done part of the work.  She’s lost the weight, but she hasn’t really firmed up and gotten any kind of tone or definition.
And she’s very, very pale.  Like albino pale.  Like a vampire would tell her that she needs to get some sun pale
Beyond that, she just looks sort of dorky, needing better glasses/contacts, and a serious tweezing.
Along with her “I’m going to flaunt what I’ve no longer got” attitude, the other visual cue that tipped me off to the fact that something (I’d guessed that it was weight loss) had changed about her body was her awkwardness about her body.  There was something about her posture that just said that she really isn’t accustomed to being half the woman she used to be, which only adds to her dorkiness.
In any case, there was one woman in the class – married, of course – whom I found very attractive and whom I had difficulty taking my eyes off of for most of the day.
Beyond simply being attractive, though, she reminded me rather a lot of a stripper I used to know – a favorite of mine, in fact.
The resemblance was rather uncanny, though she did have a more prominent nose and lacked the glazed, half-lidded stoner eyes that Kayla, the stripper in question, usually sported.
Also, she wasn’t hanging upside down from a pole while naked, though I did spend much of the day visualizing just that, which I’m sure had a negative impact on my ability to learn about…whatever it was we were supposed to be learning about.
Oh, yeah, diversity.
For lunch the four of us headed over to the food court at the Town Center where I got myself a Bacon Dog from Frank –n- Stein.
After that it was just a matter of coasting through the rest of the afternoon, and now here I am, free from not only having to learn about diversity, but from having to actually encounter it as I settle back into my routine.
I may post later, but the routine, which involves a lot of TV watching from this point on, will likely prevent that from happening.