Creating Strategic Partnerships.

I was required by a work mandate to attend assertiveness training. Of all the people in the world who don't need assertiveness training, I am queen of their tribe. But whatever. They want to waste money to make me sit still for 2 days, whatever. I'd have preferred a cash donation instead, but they didn't ask me.

So I go to training. The leader of the class is a man named Yahya (pronounced Ya-ya). He is Iranian. He has a thick accent. And his name is Yahya. Thus my day begins...

Yahya is a nice guy - very amiable and I would probably enjoy him a lot if I understood a single word that came out of his mouth. But seeing as how I am deaf and already have trouble with accents, I heard nothing. The 3 inch long stand alone mustache he had going on just aggravated an exisiting problem...I couldn't even read his lips. The 'stache was so long you couldn't even tell if he was smiling or not. But his eyes smiled. I think. Or he was just leering.

In addition to his stand-alone 'stache, Yahya showed up to training in quite an ensemble. He must have purchased his shirt on his way to the seminar, because it still have the creases from how the shirt was folded in the store. One crease right across the stomach and 2 down each side of his chest. It also still had the cardboard in the collar, but I won't mention that. The side of his shirt won't stay tucked in because he has his pants sagged down so low you woulda thought he was a gangsta. I think the pants were super-saggy that day because he kept sticking his hands down the back of his pants. I guess he wanted to make sure his arse was still there. His fly was unzipped the entire morning and my view from the front row was compromising. When he returned from lunch, he must have fixed the problem because I didn't get anymore peeks at little Yahya. But he made sure the cardboard collar was still in place.

The seminar was long and boring. But the Star Trek jokes he kept making kept me alert. Oh wait, I don't watch Star Trek. I am a girl and I respect myself just a little bit. Not much. But a little.