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Anyway, while I was going to night school for the MBA, one of my classes was titled Human Behavior or something like that.\u00a0 \u00a0The guy who taught it was a Ph.D in one of the soft sciences, and I knew pretty quickly that he leaned way left.\u00a0 That’s okay; in my book you can lean however you want as long as you don’t expect me to agree with you on every issue.<\/p>\n
The first night of class the prof had everyone tell the rest of their class their name and what they did.\u00a0 \u00a0We were all yuppies, we were all young, and we all had good jobs. It made for good entertainment, but I had a feel for how things were going from the first several yuppies who told us what they did and the prof’s reactions and questions.\u00a0 Yep, the guy was a definite leftie.\u00a0 I started to wonder what his reaction would be to me…a guy firmly entrenched in the military industrial complex working for a munitions company.<\/p>\n
“So what do you do, Joe?” Dr. WhatsHisName asked.<\/p>\n
“Uh, I’m an engineer,” I said, hoping he would leave it at that, but knowing he wouldn’t.<\/p>\n
“What kind of an engineer are you, and who do you work for?”<\/p>\n
“Uh, I’m a mechanical engineer,” I said.\u00a0 \u00a0No sense in oversharing, I figured.\u00a0 Maybe he wouldn’t notice I didn’t name my company.<\/p>\n
“Who do you work for?”<\/p>\n
“I work for an aerospace company.”<\/p>\n
“What company, and what do you engineer?”\u00a0 This guy wasn’t going to give up.\u00a0 I liked my job and I liked what I did, but I wasn’t about to tell Jerry Rubin here I supported the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n
“I work for Aerojet, and we make a variety of products.”\u00a0 It had become a contest, and I was losing.<\/p>\n
“What are your products?”\u00a0 He had me.\u00a0 \u00a0Time to ‘fess up.<\/p>\n
“I do cluster bombs.”\u00a0 \u00a0There.\u00a0 It was out.\u00a0 I knew the guy was going to call whoever it is you call when you find someone violating the Geneva Convention.\u00a0\u00a0The good doctor stared at me for several seconds.\u00a0 The other 30 or so yuppies in the class were dead silent.\u00a0 It was a pregnant pause if ever there was one and we were pretty close to the 9-month mark.\u00a0 Somebody’s water was about to break.<\/p>\n
“Does your family know what you do?” he softly asked, speaking almost in a whisper.<\/p>\n
“My wife does,” I said, mirroring his subdued tone.<\/p>\n
“And how does she feel about how you earn a living?”<\/p>\n
At this point, I knew I had to come clean.\u00a0 “Truth be told, Professor, she’s disappointed in me.”\u00a0 I had hoped that would end the discussion, but the guy would not let up.\u00a0 He was a dog and I was the bone.\u00a0 Then I sensed a way out, anticipating what his next question would be.<\/p>\n
“What does she say to you?” he asked.<\/p>\n
“Well, Doc, like I said, she’s disappointed, and she’s made that known on several occasions.”\u00a0 The good Professor was nodding knowingly.\u00a0 He was hearing my confession.\u00a0 \u00a0I don’t recall specifically, but I’m pretty sure he was smiling.\u00a0 I was on a roll and I continued. “You see, Professor, my wife works for TRW’s Ballistic Missiles Division.\u00a0 They do nuclear intercontinental missiles and she’s always asking me why I’m wasting my time screwing around with conventional weapons.\u00a0 If you’re going to go, she always says, go big.\u00a0 Go nuclear.”<\/p>\n
My yuppie classmates started laughing.\u00a0 Me, I was scared.\u00a0 I was running a perfect 4.00 grade point average in the MBA program up to that point, and I thought I had just blown any chance of aceing this course.\u00a0 The professor nodded without expression, made a note on his pad, and went on to the next yuppie.\u00a0 My being a wiseass had earned a good laugh, but that note he made couldn’t have been a good thing and I was afraid it would cost me.<\/p>\n