Here are some of the things the Devil likes:
1. Words: The Devil likes to hear himself talk. And talk. And talk. My office is four doors down, and sometimes he'll talk on the telephone for more than an hour, with nary a breath. The person on the other end of the telephone could die, and the Devil wouldn't know. The members of our board call our division manager to ask her questions and beg her not to put them through to him because they know he'll keep them on the telephone forever. In staff meetings, the Devil likes to kick things off with a rousing 75 minute recap of the previous staff meeting. One time, the Devil's boss told me to speak up more in meetings because he was tired of hearing the Devil’s voice.
2. Specific words: The Devil has a roster of favorite words that creep into all of his communications. The roster varies, with new words called in from bullpen while old ones are retired to the showers. Current favs? Debacle, effectuate, stead (pronounced like "peed"), egregious (pronounced correctly, but used incorrectly), and concomitant (both pronounced and used incorrectly).
3. The name of our company: Oh, he loves the name of our company. If he can use it in every sentence of a five paragraph letter, he will. If he can use it twice in each sentence, even better. The Devil has no use for pronouns.
4. Editing: The Devil doesn't actually write anything. But he has the fastest red pen in the state. Add to that the fact that the Devil wants to read every piece of paper that our division sends out, and you have a lot of people who want to jab that red pen right in his eye.
5. Lots of words: Did I say this already? Ah, but now we're writing. Let's say you wrote the following sentence in a letter: "The shipment arrived two days later than promised." The Devil, and his flipping red pen, would alter that sentence as follows: "In reference to the shipment of egregious polymer fiber doodads that you faithfully promised X-Company would arrive at the warehouse before 10:30 on Saturday the 4th, there was some kind of an unexplained concomitant delay that resulted in a debacle with losses all around and more than half of the X-Company workforce forced to force their way into new boxes from another merchant that were not polymer or even fiber, and were not doodads, but in their stead were concomitantly used for the same purpose because your delivery was not effectuated in a timely manner but rather resulted in a delay for X-Company of not one, but two days."
Once upon a time, I was young and naive . . .
Like every good fairy tale with a beautiful princess (me) and an evil villain (the Devil), this story begins with a once upon a time.
Once upon a time, I was young and naive. I believed that, while there might be evil people in the world, I wouldn't run in to many of them. Then I met my current boss.
He wasn't even my boss when I met him. He had been lurking for some time in the underbrush at my employer, making other people's lives miserable. My co-workers would complain about him, telling outrageous stories about how difficult he was, what a control freak he could be, how he would make a simple meeting scheduled to last for thirty minutes into a half-day of mindless droning interspersed with fiery ranting. I would laugh and laugh. I thought: What whiners. What babies. He can't be that bad.
Then the ax fell on my wonderful, understanding, hardworking boss, and the Devil showed up, throwing away her potted plants and shredding anything that looked like it might complicate his job. Of course, he didn't really know how things worked, so he turned to me. He promised me pretty things, like a promotion and a raise, a title, an office, and my own secretary, if I could help him make sense of his new responsibilities. I was already in a weakened condition, because I missed my old boss. So I took his proferred apple, and became Eve, fallen from grace and ensnared by the Devil.
I've had 2500 days with the Devil. That's 26o work days a year, for 11+ years. For each year, subtract 1 actual sick day and 9 mental health days [110], three weeks of vacation [165], and 8 holidays (New Year's Day, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day, Thanksgiving (2 days), and Christmas) [88], and you get 2500 days.
Of course, if this really were a fairy tale, there would be a tidy little ending where the Devil would get his comeuppance and I (or at least someone) would get to live happily ever after. I'm working on it, believe me. But in the meantime, misery loves company. So meet the Devil. You're gonna love working for him.
Once upon a time, I was young and naive. I believed that, while there might be evil people in the world, I wouldn't run in to many of them. Then I met my current boss.
He wasn't even my boss when I met him. He had been lurking for some time in the underbrush at my employer, making other people's lives miserable. My co-workers would complain about him, telling outrageous stories about how difficult he was, what a control freak he could be, how he would make a simple meeting scheduled to last for thirty minutes into a half-day of mindless droning interspersed with fiery ranting. I would laugh and laugh. I thought: What whiners. What babies. He can't be that bad.
Then the ax fell on my wonderful, understanding, hardworking boss, and the Devil showed up, throwing away her potted plants and shredding anything that looked like it might complicate his job. Of course, he didn't really know how things worked, so he turned to me. He promised me pretty things, like a promotion and a raise, a title, an office, and my own secretary, if I could help him make sense of his new responsibilities. I was already in a weakened condition, because I missed my old boss. So I took his proferred apple, and became Eve, fallen from grace and ensnared by the Devil.
I've had 2500 days with the Devil. That's 26o work days a year, for 11+ years. For each year, subtract 1 actual sick day and 9 mental health days [110], three weeks of vacation [165], and 8 holidays (New Year's Day, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day, Thanksgiving (2 days), and Christmas) [88], and you get 2500 days.
Of course, if this really were a fairy tale, there would be a tidy little ending where the Devil would get his comeuppance and I (or at least someone) would get to live happily ever after. I'm working on it, believe me. But in the meantime, misery loves company. So meet the Devil. You're gonna love working for him.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment