The Social Hermit: Absurdity

As with any job that works with the general public, I face an assault of questions every day. The questions can range from being intensely personal, to general questions you would ask someone you just met, or even random questions that have nothing to do with my job. I will happily answer any question, but the ones that grate on my nerves are ones involving pre-formed thoughts on Berea. Berea of course has a rich history of many things: equality, labor, teaching, and crafts, as well as other things. Unfortunately, people seem to assume that because Berea has such a rich history of these things that it still adheres to them. Every day someone comes in, looks around the store, slowly gravitating closer to me, only to see that I’m making a broom, to which they ask me “So, are you an art major?” or even worse, “So, are you going to make brooms for a living?” The absurdity of these questions astounds me. Asking that that would be like walking up to a student working in a hotel and asking them if they plan on being a hotel manager after college! All I can do is smile politely, maybe even laugh, and politely inform them that Berea is a Liberal arts school, but that doesn’t mean that we all are majoring in the arts. I have faced stereotypes and generalizations because of where I lived (south eastern Kentucky and about as “Appalachian” as you can get) my entire life, but I accepted them, they were just a part of life that I had to accept. But now that I’m in this new town where tolerance and broad thinking is endorsed, I refuse to continue accepting this. Henceforth, every time someone enters the store with these misconceptions, I work my hardest to correctly inform them about the college and what we really are about.