Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK: The Disciplinary Hearing - 1/1

Terry!

What a wonderful take on Ralph! Well-written, of course. Thanks for sharing part of yourself and for giving us an alternative view of Ralph. (After reading this comment thread… it IS a bit odd how much we like to rag on Ralph considering how little he’s shown up in the show.)

Sara

Very late to this one, but as a fellow aspie, thank you took me 40 years to work out why I hid in corners, freaked out at noise and either couldn't carry a conversation in a bucket, or acted so hyper-enthusiastic I sounded drunk. Doesn't help that most people still think women can't be autistic

Hi Terry,

I still have quite a backlog, but luckily, Bean22 popped this one back up

OOooh!, those are always fun. What did Lois do this time?

I don’t know that colloquialism and it’s fun to just make stuff up, so, it’s either Clark’s a seven and Lois an eleven—

LOIS: You bet I’m twice as good as Clark!

-- anyway, it’s either that or because Lois and Clark work from seven a.m. to eleven p.m.

I can’t believe the amount of competence on display here! So rarely seen in fictional bureaucracy. Also, I just realized, that’s “bureau” and “crazy” right in there. I wonder if that’s intentional or just lucky happenstance.

An illegal puppy mill? Another term I would need to look up, so… let’s see. I’m going with a facility that grinds up puppies. And “illegal” means there’s also legal ones? Like those factories that make insect protein powder by grinding up mealworms and locusts?

So, what happened really? Because that doesn’t sound like something the teacher should be mad about. Unless Ralphs interrupting the class.

About tall green women with a severe lack of complexity?

You’re working really hard to make Ralph sympathetic. I’m wondering about the endgame.

One wonders how much todays workplace would have some HR rule about persons with social disabilities. Because this sounds like he’s on the spectrum.

You’re really working on de-joking him. Of course if he’s a joke, then what’s the person who hired him? Only thing that remains is Ralph’s drunken hitting on Lois during the S4 holiday episode. Hmm…just how drunk was he before the timeloop started…

Oh you went there completely. Didn’t think it would be this explicit

Ralph’s explanation was a great write up. I do remember the first time AS came up for me was with one of the lawyers in Boston Legal.

And here we go again with the inappropriate remarks

Oh wow, it’s set in Season 5!

So, that was a great piece, Terry! I so did not expect it to be this deep from the title.

/goes on to check the FDK/

Oh, yes. I see. Wonderful write-up! Thanks for sharing!

I also never realized how many FoLCs here are programmers. It's eerie. Good thing I never wanted to do computer stuff in a fic half-chumped. The liberties you get on TV regarding computers is just staggering.

Michael

Hey, new feedback for an old(er) story. Wow!

KSaraSara, I apologize for not responding earlier. Your kind words are most welcome.

Bean22, thanks for the kudos. Yes, women can be autistic. My younger daughter lands on the spectrum near my marker. She's learned to handle it, but it's still something of a strain for her. Just like it still is for me.

Hi, Michael!

The "seven or eleven" is from a dice game called craps. At certain times in the game, they are the desired numbers to roll because you win. At other times, those numbers make you lose. It's a tiny bit like Dragon Poker.

The "competence" shown in Perry's call to HR reflects the attitudes of the better companies for whom I've worked in my career. Not all of them were this careful.

An "illegal puppy mill" is an enterprise for breeding dogs without regard to their health or welfare only to sell the puppies as quickly as possible for the highest price possible. They're illegal because they violate the animal cruelty acts that all fifty states have enacted. A lot of fighting dogs are bred in mills.

It happened to me, like everything else Ralph tells Perry. Like I noted above, I've been researching this story all my life.

Was
really inappropriate? It certainly drove home the point, that there are aspects of everyone's personality or physical presence that can't be altered easily. For example, I'm 6'4" and broad-shouldered, and I have intimidated a number of people without any intent to do so. I usually feel bad about it.

That's very true. I laughed at "Virtually Destroyed" when it came out, but now it's just about possible with the immersive game systems on the market.

And about so many of us being (or having been) programmers? Writing is usually a solo activity (Argh! Don't glance at Annie and Kathy!) as is writing code. We have to deal with people to find out what's needed and to get our tests validated, but between those two points there is a great deal of "thinking all by myself" time.

Thanks for reading! Bye for now.

Hi Terry!

Thanks for explaining stuff!

Yeah, backtracking it from the FDK thread, makes perfect sense. Except the teacher. It does remind me of a story about Carl Gauß who (re-)discovered the Gauß sum formula n*(n+1)/2 as a nine-year-old in math class. His teacher was not amused when he was done summing up 1..100 without taking hours to do it.

In today's workplace, at least as portrayed in television (and sometimes news articles about PC culture in corporations), yeah, some things you don't mention or it can be considered sexual harassment. I guess, probably anything that's subjective is taboo these days and since attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder, that one's out. So yes, in today's workplace, Lois could probably get offended by being remarked on as being attractive, and win the associated lawsuit. Of course, in 1998, yeah, that one would be fine.

That's true. Of course, there's pair programming when you're a) inclined to and b) lucky enough to be able to do it regularly at work and at this point, my colleagues are quite unhappy if they have to strike out alone instead of having social interactions. So, yeah, for me coding has lost the lonesome-nerd stereotype a long time ago. But I totally get it (and fall into it often enough, too )

Michael

About ten years ago, our annual anti-harassment training added something new: Don't comment on anyone's clothing, even to compliment them. According to the training, saying that you like a student's t-shirt means you were looking at an area that you shouldn't have been. Of course, we also received training that stated that part of our jobs as community college-level instructors was to better prepare the students for the workplace in non-content-area ways, including letting them know when their attire would not be deemed professional. Go figure. I'm so glad I'm retired and only teach an occasional class as an adjunct now.


- Lynn

which is why you end up with Powerpoint presentations of mannequins in proper business attire. plus perhaps one or two for the classroom. Then, each student should come forward, dress the mannequin in clothing they would think appropriate for the workplace and the teacher could evaluate in a safe space. Also, there's always paperdolls

And on a sadder subject - what do you do when someone accidentally has their fly open (happens more often than you'd think). Or a fresh sauce stain on their shirt they're not aware of, etc. When you're a good observer, you notice these irregularities automatically because mental pattern matching just triggers on the discrepancy. It's like Sherlock Holmes when he just knows how many steps lead up to a door. Today's workplace is certainly perfect for people who do not communicate ever. Best to go apply Japanese honeycomb hotel architecture also to the workplace. Each office building consists of a honeycomb of compartments and employees enter their own personal office from the outside. There's no contact to other human beings. By adding staggered start-times, you can even avoid contact with your compartment neighbors. Perfect! Of course, you could just do teleworking Sorry the rant.

But can you imagine today's regulations getting applied to our favorite newsroom? Maybe actually when Lex buys the Planet as a part of the LexCorp corporate workspace safety regulations.

Michael

Michael, don't give my old workplace any ideas!

Be well,
Lynn