Otters and Lions and Hair—Oh My

I am considering changing the name of my blog to something like: An Otter’s Tale.

Gary Smalley distinguishes four personality types along two axes: Lion (leaders)/Retrievers (followers) on one axis and Beaver (workers)/Otter (players) along the other. I’m a Lion/Otter. My administrative responsibilities have forced upon me more elements of Beaverness than I care for, but that is the reward for showing any Leonine potential at my current educational institution. And I am incredibly blessed by our departmental secretary—who is truly a gift from God (and I mean that in all sincerity and sans fromage). She is meticulous and enjoys scanning papers for details and number crunching (shiver).

But once in awhile, my otter nature makes my life more difficult than it could be. Take this morning for example. I get up early with the girls and Scooter scoots off to the bus around 7:00. As bleary-eyed Skeeter and I go through our morning routine (Kadie sleeps in, having worked the late shift last night), it dawns on me that I could walk her to school, take our two dogs and then complete a brief run before arriving at work around 9:30. (Several morning arrivals this week allowed me to come in a bit later today.)

So I walk her to school and then continue running/walking for another 45 minutes or so. I return to the house at 8:50. Squealer is now up, and so is Kadie. The phone rings and it is our departmental secretary. "Payroll has to be approved by 9:00" she says.

"Crud!" I mutter. (Crud is my personal Christian expletive of choice).

Payroll has to be approved for all faculty in our department and for all student workers every two weeks. I have observed repeatedly that people become quite irate when their paychecks are delayed. And of course I have to sign off on payroll by enttering a code into our computer system software. That I cannot access from off campus.

So I find a Baylor cap to cover my motley morning hair and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I prepare to leave. I am in a gray T-shirt with gray gym shorts, unshaven, unbathed, and sweaty. I get in the car and race up to school. Fortunately I live very close. Unfortunately I remember that 9:00 for a MWF class is the busiest time of the academic week. There are several hundred students going into our building, as well as faculty who are late arriving to campus.

I pull into a parking space and a junior faculty member in our department pulls in right next to me.

Stupid timing.

We get out of our cars at the same time and he does a double take. "Are we allowed to wear that?" he asks questioningly. (A good response would’ve been a Tom Swiftie "I’ll break you in half if you ask me again!" Taran snapped.) Instead I mutter something about casual Fridays and pulled my cap down lower across my forehead and put my sunglasses in place.

I arrive at the door to our building and see one of our student workers standing there. He doesn’t catch my eye, so I realize that he hasn’t seen me. I get past him and start to open the building door. He says "Dr. Taran, I almost didn’t recognize you!"

Stupid almost.

I quickly make my way to our departmental offices. Our secretary sees me and is completely unsurprised at my outfit. I approve payroll on the computer and start to head back to the parking lot. "Nice hair" she yells over my shoulder. I ignore her.

Later that day, when I have safely returned to school in proper attire a student mentions "I heard about your new look Dr. Taran." And the last vestige of my pride seeps away.

Stupid Otter!

But I enjoyed the walk with Squealer and the run with the dogs.