What is the sound of one hand slapping? Part I

Professionally speaking, it was a week where one hand patted me on the head while the other boxed my ear. The work week started out reasonably well with some good feedback, nice praise, and enjoyable conversation at my regular meeting with my boss. Despite my on-the-job frustrations from time to time and my generalized whining about having to work for a living, if I stop moaning and groaning long enough to count my blessings, I have to admit that I do have a few. And one of those is a sane, intelligent, fair, and fun boss for a change.

And, no, by the way, my boss hasn't started reading this blog, as far as I know, nor am I playing at being Pollyanna. (I look terrible in gingham, if truth be told.) While I'm being honest in my appraisal, it never hurts to protect one's posterior, to defend one's derriere, to cover one's commode-loader, if you get my meaning. And how could you not?

As part of our conversation, my boss noted how much I had on my plate, how I was already stuffed to the gills, wasn't I? And no, no, I really couldn't eat another bite, could I? How could she help? How could she ease my bloating and discomfort? What was the administrative equivalent of Pepto-Bismal? How could she provide even better buffet line for the future and instill in me a sense of not-all-you-can-eat?

This is a radically different approach to staff nutrition from the feast-or-famine starvation diet provided by one previous boss, Curly Squirrelly, who oversaw the office as if she were the Tsarina of Ptomaine-Laced Toast Points. In short, she was regal, she was stingy, and she was hazardous to your health.

Curly Squirrelly is the kind of person who you see on the local news every so often, with wild, frizzy hair, wearing a caftan that hasn't seen a wash cycle since 1970. The crazy lady you see being interviewed by the TV crew has just been arrested for having 3,657 cats in her house, most of whom she's not fed for months on end. As a result, the cats have all gone feral and have wiped out the bird, rodent, and pet population within a 10-mile radius of Casa del Cat Pee. The smell, the mewling, and the abundant fertility have brought out the police, Animal Control, and a HazMat team, the endeavors of which the Live at Five Eyewitness Action News Team is dutifully recording for the 6 o'clock broadcast.

Crazy Cat Lady wasn't trying to kill off her cats by starving them to death, nor was she trying to put herself forth as Amateur Pet Breeder of the Year by letting her feline population expand beyond the bounds of decency in a sort of Caligula-styled kitty sex club, nor was she attempting to establish herself as an independent contractor for homegrown fertilizer and ammonia products. Not at all. It's just that our new-found reality TV star was "distracted" and "forgot" that she had 3,657 cats to attend to. Oh wait. Make that 3,658. "Mrs. Whiskers" just dropped another one in the overgrown azaleas.

For you see, Crazy Cat Lady was too busy trying to organize the grain silo's worth of kitty kibble she has stored into her basement into perfectly uniform, nutritional nuggets, classified by color, texture, flavor, and brand. Plus she was aiming to determine which type of Meow Mix is each kitty's preferred food, for which she has created a database, organized unalphabetically by each cat's coloring, personality, and name, which she'd be happy to show you if you have some time. Say twenty years or so.

This, in a nutshell (emphasis on nut), is my former boss, Curly Squirrelly. Like our crazed amateur shelter worker, Curly Squirrelly wasn't cruel or heartless; it's just that she was quite easily distracted by attempting to examine, organize, and fix the smallest detail, so much so that the biggies escaped her attention entirely. Curly Squirrelly apparently suffered from an odd cross-pollination of anal-retentiveness and Attention Deficit Disorder. Thus, she had to fix everything, make it right, perfect it to her exacting personal NISO specifications, but she couldn't spend more than a nanosecond on each problem. And there were squillions of problems to resolve, each one deserving her undivided nanosecond of attention.

For the nanosecond she gave, she was brilliant. It's just that with so many problems and so little time, you wouldn't get her attention for another eon. The polar ice caps would come and go, whole species would evolve and die off, and the Grand Old Party might move slightly to the center before she returned her focus to you and, oops, then she was off again.

In other words, not only did she fail to see the forest for the trees, she couldn't see the trees for all the leaves, the leaves for all the veins on the leaves, the fact that the veins on the leaves weren't perfectly symmetrical, the fact that the word symmetrical isn't even symmetrical, the fact that the English language really should be restructured orthographically, and while we're at it, wasn't it strange that the Japanese and Chinese and several other peoples (which peoples? could I look that up and give her a report by 5?) didn't have an alphabet, at least not like we do, and shouldn't someone rewrite their languages into an alphabet that would be universally intelligible? And didn't I think that was a great idea? And could I start on that project right away?

Um, which project? And sure, I'd be happy to do your bidding, as soon as I finish the last project you gave me--polishing, weighing, measuring, classifying, cataloging, and filing all the coal you've CRAPPED into diamonds while I've been standing here in your office waiting for you to SHUT UP and listen to me while I tell you why I'm resigning.

All I can say is I dare not think about her toilet training too much.

So Life with Crazy Curly Squirrelly Cat Lady is a far, far cry from my current employment situation. I still have too much to do and not enough time or energy to do it, but, for the most part there is support, encouragement, and understanding.

Oh, but wouldn't you know it? I'm still never satisfied . . . .