Indiscriminate Drivel

Lessons from the Bad Boss

cheeriosThis morning, I arrived at work as usual.  I stepped out of my car,  hitched my laptop bag onto one shoulder, my purse onto the other, grabbed  my coffee and my big box of Cheerios, and I headed in to the office.

As I was walking to the door, I passed a coworker leaving who looked down at my Cheerios, smacked himself in the forehead, and said “I knew I forgot something this morning! My work CHEERIOS!”

Smart-ass.

Shortly thereafter, I sat at my desk grabbing handfuls of Cheerios out of the box and ruthlessly shoving them into my mouth and I contemplated my old boss, Bob.

Bob isn’t with us anymore, and I don’t mean he moved to South America to avoid detection by the IRS (though in other circumstances, that might be how his life played out).  Bob passed away.  I know his family misses him dearly, and certainly the world is a less colorful place without him.

When I was 20, I answered an advertisement in the newspaper titled Girl Friday.  I was called for an interview which led to the job I would have for the next 8 years.  I learned a helluva lot in those 8 years and consider that learning foundational to all that I have done in my professional life since then.  Bob, therefore, was a pretty instrumental person in my formative years, professionally speaking.

Bob was also the Worst Boss Ever.

At least that’s what we all thought when we worked for him.  Oh, he was an eccentric guy, overflowing with nervous energy and wanting everything done now now now now now.  He drove us nuts.  There were times we tried to slip him a little blue pill that would calm him the @#$% down but he always caught us.  He probably fired some of us for it, too.

Bob fired us a lot.

I left that place in 1993 and a few years later, sadly, Bob passed away.  The manner of his passing even left me shaking my head wearing a sad sort of smile.  You see, Bob was a stress-junkie.  He would never even leave the office to go to lunch (and therefore neither could any of us!).  He didn’t take sick days.  He barely took a vacation each year.  It was work work work.  He thrived on it, as best I could tell.

Long after I left, when business was slower, he took up the habit of occasionally going fishing on a weekday afternoon.  You know – to get away from it all.  To relax.  To de-stress.

It was on one of these weekday fishing expeditions  that he had the heart attack that took him from his family.

Bob never stopped showing us all the ways he was different from everyone else.

Here I am, nearly 20 years after leaving Bob’s employ (And how can that be? I’m only 28 years old, after all!) and I have had some time to reflect back on those years, on Bob and what he taught me.  Some of it is pretty important so I wanted to share these lessons with all of you.

FIRST LESSON

My first day of employment with Bob is when I learned that I wouldn’t get a lunch hour.  Nobody did.  We weren’t allowed to go out for lunch.  Employment Law was no impediment to him!  You placed your food order with the orders of the others in the office and the driver went and picked the food up.  Then, you could keep working while you ate at your desk.

Okaaaay….

That first day, they were ordering Taco Bell.  I ordered a Mexican pizza and it was sitting there on my desk as I nibbled at it while working.  Each time Bob walked past my desk (and he walked past my desk a lot), he plucked a black olive off my Mexican pizza.  With his fingers.

Hello?  I don’t even know your middle name never mind your hand-washing habits!  What the hell?

What I learned:  IF YOU REALLY WANT SOMETHING, GO FOR IT.

SECOND LESSON

When Bob was overwhelmingly busy, he was more scattered than usual.  He would bark out orders and we would all jump.  Most of the time, it was very focused on the business tasks at hand.  But once, he said he forgot to flush the toilet and told me to go flush it for him.

Oh yes he did.  My motto became “I get paid by the hour, I get paid by the hour.”  And, yes, I flushed.

What I learned:  WHEN YOU’RE REALLY BUSY AND STRESSED OUT, DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK OTHERS FOR THE HELP YOU NEED.

THIRD LESSON

Bob was always trying new things in an effort to improve his health and well-being.  Whenever he went on a diet, he would tell us we weren’t allowed to bring in any foods that tempted him.  When this happened, we’d all get the irresistible urge to bring  doughnuts for all.  And M&Ms.  And anything else we know he couldn’t resist.  Revenge is often subtle, Bob. For awhile, he was drinking so much Coke every day, his vision started to blur and the doctor told him to get off the Coke.  He switched to seltzer.  Another time when he was trying to lose weight, he decided that eating Cheerios was just the thing to help him, and could be seen at pretty much any hour of the day toting around a big box of Cheerios eating handfuls of them.  Customers looked at him like he had 2 heads.  I have pictures from the office where you can clearly see the big box of Cheerios in the background on his desk.  This trend lasted the longest, I think.

He didn’t care what people thought, and he never let our poking fun of his weird habits bother him or change his course.  Naturally, this is why I thought of Bob this morning as I (proudly) carried my big box of Cheerios into the office.

What I learned:  DON’T LET WHAT THEY THINK CHANGE WHAT YOU ARE DOING IF IT’S THE RIGHT THING FOR YOU TO DO, EVEN IF YOU’RE SEEN AS A BIG CHEERIO-EATING WEIRDO.

FOURTH LESSON

While Bob frustrated us all every day, fired most of us multiple times, compelled us to label him the Worst Boss Ever, he was a devoted husband and father.  He was even a devoted boss.  Bob would have given any one of us the shirt off his back (and he actually did once, but that’s another story).  He put himself out there in giving advice,  even when (especially when) we didn’t ask for it.  He cared about each of us in his own quirky way.  I received personal benefit from his generosity in multiple ways.  He gave me the hand-me-downs from his daughter – beautiful clothing that I could never have afforded myself as I was a single mom with two young daughters.  He and his family once took me and my girls with them on a vacation weekend that I otherwise could not have afforded.  He paid me a generous Christmas bonus in cash which was the only thing that let me put Christmas under the tree for my kids.

Bob’s wife was instrumental in running the business and there every day.  Most days, in our heads, we called her Saint Carol.   Once, she casually told me that every morning, he would bring a cup of coffee to her in their bedroom as she got started on preparing for her day.  This one personal fact let me see a whole different Bob than I knew day in and day out at the office.  This one tidbit of information was eye-opening.

What I learned:  LET PEOPLE KNOW ALL OF YOU – THE PERSONAL YOU.  LET THEM SEE YOUR DIMENSIONS, YOUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES.  LET THEM KNOW WHO YOU REALLY ARE.

Because they’ll never forget.

As I walked in with my big box of Cheerios this morning, I thought about Bob.

Thank you, Bob, for all that you taught me and for all you did for me.  I will never forget.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m sharing this post with those from my past, including Bob’s lovely wife and daughter.  Behave yourselves in the comments!  Those of us who were there in ‘nam can dog the experience all we want.  The rest of you?  You can’t know how it was.  Better you not pretend to try.  🙂

By |August 8th, 2012|Indiscriminate Drivel|Comments Off on Lessons from the Bad Boss

This post is about Jenny Lawson. I think.

This post didn’t start out about Jenny Lawson, but hang with me for a minute and I’ll explain.

It started out about make-up and curlers and punctuality.

So now you see the connection, right?  No?

OK, here’s the story:  I was running late for a social gathering tonight and I left the house with curlers in my hair and no make-up, mascara wand in my hand.

Now does it make sense?  Still no?  You people need to keep up.  Let me back up a little.

I was leaving the house in curlers and with no make-up on and my mascara in my hand, planning to put my make-up on at the red lights, and the thought occurred to me – I will be flying out of the house in curlers with my make-up in hand when I’m heading to my own damn funeral.

Some of you are thinking “Yeah, if you’re one of those dimwits who puts her make-up on in the car, I’m sure that will be sooner rather than later.”

You were, weren’t you?  I knew it.  You can’t fool me, ’cause I’m sharp.  Remember, I connected the dots regarding the title of this post way up there while you were still confused.

Why is it when I put my make-up on at home, I hit every red light on my way to wherever, but if I need a few red lights in order not to scare small children and timid animals, they’re all green as can be?  (I was totally going to apologize for that tangent and then realized this entire post is already just a comedy tragedy of tangents and my readers can just deal with it, Mom!)

I think I have to back up just one more time, and I swear I won’t go all the way to 1964.  Only to April of 2012.

I got my hair cut.  This doesn’t seem like a blog-worthy thing to bring up but bear with me.  My hair has been long and straight for quite awhile now.  I went to my stylist and wanted something really different and I told her to make me fabulous.  I have to live up to my tagline, ya know?  So she did a radically different cut and a new color.

Shortly after I got home from the salon, I was online reading one of my message boards.  There was a post about mom-hair.  Evidently, the only thing worse than mom-hair is mom-jeans.  And I thought of my new cut and said “OHMYGOD, I HAVE MOM HAIR!”

I cried so hard, my Jordache dark-wash denim-look elastic-waist jeans were spotted with tears.  It was terrible.

I promptly went to my bathroom and tried a bunch of things to un-momify it, and eventually dug the curlers out of the vanity in a last desperate attempt.  And I liked the result.

Linda Headshot Full Res

My bathroom is verdant, isn’t it?

It might still be mom-hair for all I know but I love it so and that’s all that matters.  Every morning, I get out of the shower, put some curly-hair gel product in there from the array of 1,237 bottles I happen to have lying around, and then I blow-dry it for about 2 minutes and put the curlers in.  I leave them in until I get to work.  When I stop for coffee, I practically dare people to say something.  YOU DON’T WANT TO FUCK WITH A WOMAN IN CURLERS WHO HASN’T HAD HER COFFEE, MISTER.

Since I’m already out and about in curlers, rushing to get to work, I’m just a forgetful-moment away from wearing them into my office building.  In fact, the other day, I got all the way to the front door and realized I hadn’t taken them out.  I scanned for security cameras and didn’t see any, breathed a quick sigh of relief, and then ran back to my minivan to remedy the situation.  Close call, but I found a great new place to commit a crime.  If I’m looking for such a place, that is.  (That was another tangent.  I’m not going to apologize.)

We’ve already established I’m rockin’ the curlers, so that makes me think of Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess.  Go check her out if you’re one of the two people on the planet who don’t know her – she is hilarious.  See her signature photo there on her blog?  That’s why this post is about her.  But it doesn’t stop there.  See way back up in the beginning of this post when I talked about rushing out the door?  That was about my compulsive need to be on time.  I hate being late.  I have severe social anxiety about being late (among other things).  I am so punctual that people set their watches by me, and it only takes 2 prescriptions to keep that shit under control.

THAT’S why this post is about Jenny Lawson – between the curlers and the anxiety, we’re practically twins.  Only I can’t claim any connection whatsoever to taxidermy, so there’s that.  Although if you do need more evidence, I wore my cowboy boots tonight and Jenny is from Texas.

I’m not sucking up, I swear.  I tried that once before with Dooce and it got me absolutely nowhere.  I was sure I’d be rich and famous, but no.  So I have no expectations here.  None at all.

Well, that’s not entirely true – I did buy Jenny’s book so I think she owes me something.  I think she can give me the time of day, right?  Is that too much to ask???  If she gives me the time of day, I would respectfully request 3:11, and I’d definitely prefer PM to AM,  because I’m kind of weird about numbers.  Let’s just say I wouldn’t even want 8:02; not in a million years.

The truth is that Jenny has already done more for me than most of you.  She retweeted me once regarding a post I wrote and for a few hours, I was famous on the Internet.  I put in my two weeks notice at work and everything, but then I had to go crawling back.  I figure that I’d better keep my job unless she agrees to retweet me every few hours, which seems like a lot to ask since I already asked for 3:11 PM.

I suppose when you get right down to it, this post isn’t about anything.  Or maybe it’s about the fact that it could be our quirkiness that holds us all together, and that’s OK.

But it’s definitely not about taxidermy because that would just be weird.

~~~~~~~~~

PS:  The Little Sally Walker post is one of my highest traffic posts.

PPS:  Jenny, if you read this, I really don’t think you owe me anything, but if you are inclined to retweet me every few hours, let me know ’cause this work gig is wearing me down.   Still – if you’d like to share a hotel room at BlogHer 13, let me know and I’ll share my curlers with you, and maybe my Xanax.  Maybe.

By |August 7th, 2012|Indiscriminate Drivel|Comments Off on This post is about Jenny Lawson. I think.

Missy and Sam, A Cautionary Tale

Linda and Bill Photo 2012Last month, my husband and I went on vacation.  We went to an all-inclusive place and decided not to include our children in the plans.  My youngest said “Mommy, why can’t we go with you?”  I said “Oh, honey, let me try to explain.  You wouldn’t like it if Mommy put Daddy in a consistent vegetative state with an iron skillet, would you?  Because then I’d be in prison and he’d do even less around the house than he does now.  Really, this vacation is for your benefit.”

She looked a little frightened, but I think someday she’ll understand.

So there we were in Punta Cana, spending a day pool-side.  My biggest stress was over whether to order a Pina Colada or a Mudslide.

There was another couple near where we were that day.  While Bill and I were quietly reading our books (which is our way of ‘reconnecting’, I suppose), this other couple was never quiet.  Well, he was kind of quiet if you think about it.  It was her, Missy, who was never quiet.

“Sam, I need you to put sunscreen on my back.”

“Sam, will you get me another drink?”

“Sam, bring the camera!  Take a picture of me!”

All Sam ever said was “Yes, Missy.”

Newlyweds are so cute.

By the time they left, I was glad to see them go.

I said “Goodness, but she bossed him around a lot.” to which my husband didn’t respond..

You don’t have to hit me over the head with an iron skillet for me to realize something.  In the weeks that have followed our vacation, there have been times I’ve asked Bill to do something and he’s simply replied “OK, Missy.”  At first, I thought this was a refreshing departure because he used to only say “As you wish.” which may be what started me thinking of myself as a princess.  He was my Wesley and I was his Buttercup, which I suppose means that the children can be considered Rodents of Unusual Size.

But I digress…

Later, at home, I got to thinking about all this and came to the realization that perhaps the reason Missy annoyed me so much is because I observed something about her that I am less than proud of within myself.  That warranted some introspection.  I’ve penciled it in for next Tuesday.

It’s been a few weeks since our vacation and we continue to play this little game where by he calls me Missy when I am too demanding.

There is a lesson in here for all of us, I think  And so here’s the moral of the story:

When he’s referring to me as Missy, it could be I’m being too bossy.

And when I’m not referring to him as Sam, it probably means there is some need of mine he could be fulfilling if only he’d hop to it.

By |May 25th, 2012|Indiscriminate Drivel, Married Life|Comments Off on Missy and Sam, A Cautionary Tale