“Do you just hate happy people today or something?”
“Yes.”
“Well, knock it off.”
“This? Coming from you?”
“Exactly. Consider the source. If I’m saying it, you may have crossed a threshold.”
-C. and Marie
A few lessons gleaned from this week, a few frustrations, and a few observations:
For all you would-be moguls out there, may I offer a humble tip towards being a good boss: Listen to your secretaries. They are the people who are responsible for keeping your megalomaniac ambitions logged, organized, and proceeding according to schedule. Lt. Citrus and Lt. Figaro both laid a project each on me this week without warning, which while it more than quadrupled my workload wasn’t too bad. The instructions, on the other hand, were maddening.
Quoth Lt. Figaro, “So, I’d like you to update this directory of every employee in the department. We haven’t done it in three years or so and it’s entirely obsolete. Theeson was the last person to update it” [Theeson was replaced by Tink who was replaced by Wise who was replaced by me, just for a time frame reference] ” but no one else ever really used it except me, and since she quit I’ve done without it, but I’ve decided I’d like a new copy.”
I tried to tell him that 1) we were hiring and firing half a dozen people within the week so the list would be obsolete by Friday anyway and 2) that I kept an up-to-date roster on the department server already complete with names, call numbers, and personal and professional contact information. “Well, just make it for me then if no one else will use it,” he smiled and went back to his office. I tried not to cry and mentally cut back my lunch hour.
Lt. Citrus’ project was validly important to the university, but the instructions he gave me to do it all came in the wrong order, with outdated software, and logically confusing interjections of last minute ideas, corrections, or modifications. And since it involved the creating, labeling, stuffing, packaging and mailing of literally 100 packets, by the end of the second day I had papercut my fingertips to shreds.
It’s been a long, hard week and I’m intensely glad it’s Friday. And I want Tink back desperately, work without a good friend to grumble about assignments to is drudgery.
1- I shouldn’t have, but I did! Amazon.com was having a sale of international DVDs, I was weak. On the upside I finally own Amelie and the Gerard Depardieu version of Cyrano de Bergerac. I wanted to get Paradise Now but I couldn’t bring myself to spend even more…a laudable decisions I immediately flouted by finding some of my favorite books on sale as well.
1a- Addendum to the above: obviously I didn’t have enough books already so I went to Barnes and Noble’s website and found them selling my absolute favorite novel (which is out of print and I lent out my copy a year ago to S. Bear. She lost it. I nearly wept.) so what was I supposed to do but order a new copy? 
My latest bone to pick with mornings is my workout schedule. J. and I have started working out together, but on weight lifting days the only time we can seem to manage is early mornings, other times are just too crowded at the gym. Today was the first attempt at the new time. I HATE it. There were about three other girls, all with their respective boyfriends like me, who had to navigate the rows of testosterone soaked equipment with our dinky little 5 and 10 lbs weights while these Hulk-wannabes hefted my entire body weight in each arm for arm curls. Every once and a while some guy let out a roar that sounded suspiciously like he was giving birth, and most spent an inordinate amount of time checking themselves out in the mirrors. If I hadn’t been so cranky/clueless I’d have thought it was hilarious. Unfortunately nothing is funny that early, not even to me.
Small Dog Syndrome 