Good Enough

 I want to be a good person. I want to be a responsible person. I want to be a good employee and citizen. But sometimes my mind wanders.

I was required to take an online training on sexual harassment. The first bad thing my brain did was ask the question: "So, you want to train me in the subtle art of sexual harassment?" There was no one to say this to, and I was reminded by my conscience that this would be a bad thing to say, so I avoided it. Of course, now that I am writing it down here, I may be complicit in my own undoing. 

Strike one.

I dutifully loaded up the presentation, and flinched just a bit when I saw that the running time was "approximately one hour." Which I don't think makes me a bad person, but reacting like that made me wonder if I was as committed to this topic as I should be. Admonishing myself, I pressed the start button and was underway. The introduction was enough to let me know that this was in fact very serious stuff that had state and federal laws connected to it and I should, by law, be paying strict attention. 

So I did. I made mental notes about the statutes involved and as the second section began, I watched and listened intently to the definitions and descriptions to behavior that could get me or the people with whom I work in trouble. I could see, and knew from previous experience, that there would be a quiz at the end which pushed my studious nature to the fore. I wanted to do well on that quiz. I wanted to do well because I am a good person who would not do any of these annoying, degrading and ultimately despicable things. 

It was somewhere about the halfway point in the presentation where I started wondering about the photo shoots that helped generate the scenes I was watching. These were obviously not stock images, since the individuals were often used in sequences in different locations or circumstances. I wondered how much direction these folks were given about the scenarios depicted. Were they trained professionals? Actors? Then there were videos in which a variety of different circumstances were shown and a variety of dramatic scenes were played out.

And suddenly I was reminded of my son's first few months of college, during which he was required to take a number of similar online courses dealing with a range of topics including sexual harassment. And at the end of one of them, he noticed that there were credits given for the portrayals of the individuals involved in the harassment or the binge drinking or even the untimely death of a classmate from substance use. He discovered that it was his department, theater arts, that were providing the casts for these videos, and that some of them were upperclassmen who were still finishing up their degrees. He mused briefly on the introduction to one of these thespians: "Nice to meet you. Sorry you died in that drunk driving accident." 

Snapping back, I remembered that I was somebody's dad. Somebody's teacher. A husband and pillar of the community. I couldn't ignore what was playing out in front of me. There was still that quiz to take. 

Which is when I started musing about the font choice made by the creators of the course I was watching. And the popping noises made by the colorful bubble transitions between slides. I was curious about the meetings that took place before those choices were made. What sort of font would be entertaining but serious enough for the content? Did we want to have a simple dissolve, or should be go to the random circle shift between sections? 

I was running out of time. My hour was almost up, and I found myself wondering if any of the people involved in the making of this presentation had been sexually harassed or had experienced it while it was being made. 

Then my mandated hour was up. I was confronted by the quiz. I hoped that I had absorbed all the necessary knowledge to do my best, to reflect what a good and responsible person I truly am. Even with all those random thoughts and associations might suggest otherwise. 

I got a hundred percent on the quiz. 

I am a good person, after all.