We hated Karen Woo. We hated hating Karen Woo because we feared we might be racists. The white guys especially. But it wasn't just the white guys. Benny, who was Jewish, and Hank, who was black, hated Karen too. Maybe we hated Karen not because she was Korean but because she was a woman with strong opinions in a male-dominated world. But it wasn't just the men; Marcia couldn't stand her and she was a woman. And Marcia loved Donald Sato, so she couldn't be a racist. Donald wasn't Korean but he was Asian of some kind, and everybody liked him as much as Marcia did even though he didn't say a whole lot. One time, Donald did say, as he turned away from his computer for a brief moment, toward a group of four or five of us, "My grandpa has this weird collection of Chinese ears." We had been discussing something, it wasn't like it just came out of nowhere. But at the same time, it wasn't unusual for an entire day to go by where Donald said only, "Uh, maybe," like four or five times, half of them without even directing his attention away from his computer, and then five o'clock hit and no more Donald. Now he's telling us about his grandpa's-"What do you mean, a collection of ears?" asked Benny. "Are you talking real ears, like real ears?" "Ears from the heads of Chinese people, yes," Donald assented, having turned back to his computer screen. "A whole sack of them." The mystery deepened. "A sack? What kind of a sack?" Sam Ludd, who smoked a lot of pot and frequently smelled like Funyuns, turned to Benny to communicate something to him in the secret language of laughter. "But seriously," Benny persisted, pivoting on the window ledge to look at Donald straight on, "what are you talking about, Don?" "And what would constitute a non-weird collection of Chinese ears?" asked Sam, who lasted about two and a half seconds after layoffs began. "They're from the war," Don told the screen. "He doesn't like to talk about it." "But you've seen it?" said Benny. "There's more than just one," said Don. "No, the sack, the sack," said Benny. Don looked at him and nodded. "Yeah." "Well did he, like, cut them off himself? did he buy them? were they given to him as a gift? Don, talk to me." "I don't really know much more. I know he was in the war. Maybe he cut them off, I don't know. That's not something you can really ask your grandpa." "Okay, but …" Benny was flustered, "you shouldn't bring it up then, man, if you don't have more information." "I think you're wrong, Don," said Sam. "I think you can ask a grandpa if he cut the ears off Chinese people." "What did they look like?" asked Benny. "Can you tell me that?" Don told the screen he didn't really know what they looked like. They looked like ears. Dead old shriveled ears. And the sack was just a felt thing with a drawstring. Benny nodded and bit his cheek.
Anyway, Karen Woo. Did we dislike her because we were racists, because we were misogynists, because her "initiative" rankled and her motivations were so bald, because she wore her Senior title like a flamboyant ring, or because she was who she was and we were forced by fate to be around her all the time? Our diversity pretty much guaranteed it was a combination of all of the above.