Sucking up, kissing ass, currying favor or whatever you want to call it, is an intricate science that only few manage to pull off successfully. There’s a fine balance that you have to maintain if one means to ingratiate to achieve a certain goal. If executed incorrectly, you run the risk of coming across as self-serving and manipulative, be labeled as brown-nosing and would end up in a worse position than before.
I am not an expert at sucking up. In fact, I tend to act adversely against people who do engage in said action. It’s a desperate measure that others seem to partake in so naturally, like the attribute was innate to them. But, as the old adage goes, it’s what desperate times call for.
I am not so good with numbers; I love Math, but the feeling isn’t entirely mutual. People who know me thought I was committing suicide when I enrolled for engineering in college — in retrospect, it kind of was. The first term proved to be just a refresher of everything we already knew in high school but the second term came at me like a shock to the system. Everyone dreaded the impending Statistics course, but nobody warned us about Differential Calculus. Personally, I have never encountered Calculus during high school because I was assigned to the Finance Math class, and I was woefully ill-prepared for what I was about to engage with.
What came soon after was a barrage of unintelligible symbols, blank test papers and endless loops of equations. It’s tempting to say that the professor was some tyrant slave driver who fed on the sorrow of the students taking the course, but in reality she was a kind, old, Chinese lady whose eyes disappear behind her thick glasses when she smiled. The course had 5 departmental quizzes and one final exam to gauge whether a student is worthy enough to move on to the next level of torture.
Many students who took the course cruised with ease, passing with flying colors, and even though I would like to think of myself as one of those lucky few … I wasn’t. Unlike my peers who were in denial, I knew my weakness and I knew that I have to act quick or else I guarantee my failure. I studied hard but then I ended up with a failing grade on a quiz, then I studied harder but the results were the same. I mean, literally the same. The passing grade for each departmental exam was 60%, and I always ended up getting 48%. The numbers mocked me tirelessly.
There was no use sulking, I had to increase my effort. I consulted with my classmates who had passing marks, but we always ended up talking about other things or playing Magic: the Gathering. I enrolled for a tutor for the first time in my life, but ended up even more confused than before. Running out of options, I knew I had to step back a bit and rely on my strength. I needed to realign my strategy.
Every after session since then, I waited for the class to dissipate before I consulted my professor directly. I talked to her about clarifications and concerns while I escorted her back to the faculty department a few buildings away. I never missed a beat — I knew I had to be relentless. I kept at it during the entire course, easing up from time to time, mixing academic queries with some personal questions. It wasn’t brown-nosing — at least in my mind at the time. I saw it more as a conscious effort to reinforce my chances of a passing grade.
It went on even though I kept receiving 48% every departmental exam. The clock was ticking and I didn’t see any progress. There were times when I thought that I should just give up but I just kept at it, with no assured outcome. The after session talks became formulaic, until it didn’t — my injection of personal topics forced the conversations to switch to being personal. I felt a real bond form there that transcended its intended purpose — it was genuine, and I had no problem with it.
Final exams rolled in, and I was worse for wear than ever. I studied to the best of my abilities but I felt my anxiety filling to the brim. It was a five-question examination and we were given about 3 hours of pure agony to complete it. Naturally, I was only confident with one item, and ended up writing filler equations to the other questions. The last question had me stumped; I had no clue how to answer it and no more time to burn. So, I decided to write down the only thing I could: a heartfelt letter.
Admittedly, the content was a little drawn out and the gesture was a little grandiose, but with my back against the wall, it was the only weapon left in my arsenal. I sincerely thanked my professor for everything she had done for me, and I didn’t care if it came across as a thinly veiled attempt to kiss ass because at that point it genuinely wasn’t. My strategy came so far from where it began.
Days went by slowly; the wait was agonizing. I knew the result, from the bottom of my soul, but I kept holding out for hope. When the day the grades would be put up came, I trudged my way slowly to the university. The steps felt as steep as a mountain trail, the hallways felt like it was slowly caving in. The grades of the final exams were posted before I came to the classroom. My heart sunk when I discovered that I have broken my streak of 48% grades — I received a 47% on my final exam.
Dread overcame me — there was no chance now that I could pass. I tried to mask my sadness with laughter, but all the while I just wanted to bury myself in my bed sheets. We were forced to form a queue to receive our final grade; one-by-one we walked towards our professor to be handed a tiny piece of cardboard that held our fate. I waited my turn and bided my time — I was in no rush to be handed something I already painfully knew.
“Gonzales,” she called out, her face emotionless and her eyes averting my gaze.
I pursed my lips, let out a sigh, grabbed my grade and walked out of the room. Despite my classmates asking what my grade was, I refused to even look at it. I lacked the courage to deal with something I’ve known for a while now and confirmed earlier.
It was windy that day, and the whole university was bustling for varying reasons. I sat on a bench overlooking the road and decided to finally look at my grade.
I passed. (No surprise there if you’ve read the subtitle.)
It was a shallow victory, but a victory nonetheless. I didn’t want to question the outcome out of fear that the passing grade might be retracted. If I could do it all over again, I would’ve done things very differently, it just so happens that this is how the cards fell in this timeline — a derivative of everything I’ve done in the past.
With all that being said, I couldn't help but think of its analogy with Steemit. A lot of people "suck up" to Steemit whales, and that's all well and good. Currently, that's the only viable strategy to progress. The problem is that most people are so fixated on getting whale upvotes that they forget more important things like interacting with other users. Personally, I prefer conversations rather than upvotes. Don't get me wrong though, if you're thinking about giving me an upvote, by all means do it. What I'm saying is, don't just blindly upvote or comment just to kiss ass.
I would've entitled this "The Science of Sucking Up" because it felt more catchy, but I felt that "Calculus" would be more apt, since that's the subject mentioned in the story.
Image credits to Elisa Xyz (http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=12367&picture=writing)