Friday, February 18, 2005

Bad, bad employee!

After my supervisor's disgusting Tuesday display of, let's see...nastiness, rudeness, two-facedness, inappropriateness and boneheadedness...work became a very different place in my mental landscape.

On Wednesday, I could hardly stand to look at him, let alone speak to him. His drama king-like behavior, his almost cliched depiction of "little man syndrome," "Napoleon complex," or whatever name you like, sickened me. I managed to avoid speaking to him for much of the morning, between his meetings and conference calls. I was not up to idle workplace chit-chat, and I did not want to hear him laughingly tell me about his supervisor's response to the snotty e-mail he sent. He clearly wasn't fired, that was for sure. Although give him time, and I'm sure he'll conjure enough rope to hang himself.

Thursday, I managed the morning chit-chat, but spent as much of the day as possible with my iPod on, a nice little musical buffer.

Today came freedom. The boss was away all day. To celebrate, I started my morning right with a pain au chocolat from Le Panier, something I rarely do, but should do more. Yum! And then, as a bold-but-silent statement of my temporary emancipation...I was a very bad employee. In fact, I hereby proclaim today "Bad Employee Day." (Kind of makes up for the fact my company doesn't give us President's Day off. So there!)

And what did I do that was so very, very bad? Did I embezzle? Did I steal office supplies? Did I send prank faxes on company letterhead? Well, no. But I didn't do much work, I'll tell you that (just finished up a few things that innocent coworkers were waiting for...including one person that my boss was so very, very nasty to on Tuesday). I surfed the Web. I read a baking book. I took care of personal business. I quietly bitched about my boss with my long-suffering coworker. It was glorious.

Do I feel guilty? Not a bit. Because in between bouts of goofing off, I made a few decisions. If my boss ever tries to rope me into office politics when the players and the happenings do not otherwise affect me or my work, if he ever speaks nastily of the TWO people I replaced (when he's praising MY work, no less), if he ever dares to use his nasty tone of voice on ME...I will firmly but diplomatically tell him that it cannot happen again. Because he really has no power (which is why he acts the way he does, as any Psychology 101 student would attest to), and I'm sure he knows that I know enough of things he has done and said to bring him down if necessary. Plus, I have multiple electronic and printed copies of the e-mail he sent his boss...with the snarky little header he put on it when he sent it to me and his other underlings.

So who has the power now? Hahahahahahahahahahaha!

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