The King and I

I usually adore The Boss. When work is not involved we get along extremely well. There is, oddly and very pleasantly, no awkward sense of hierarchical division between us when we're just shooting the breeze, unlike almost every other boss I've worked for.

But where work is involved, things are very different. The Boss, although laid back in normal life, becomes slightly psychotic when work is involved. This is largely because he has very specific standards - perfection is not just desirable, it is mandatory. Plus, he's really rather brilliant, in an evil-mad-scientist sort of way. (I dream of the day I, a mere Igor, can become like him.) Unfortunately, although this makes him an excellent teacher, it also makes him incredibly stressful to work for. He tends, like all very smart people, to forget trivial (albeit hugely important to me) details in the course of Fighting the Good Fight.

I'm called into his office, and he's got something someone else drafted on the screen.
"Did you even look at this before it came to me?" he demands, a stress vein madly thumping in his temple.
"Um....no." (What the hell is that?)
"Tsch!" (Closest I can manage to putting down the exceedingly irritated noise he made in response to that) "Come in and look at this!" The Boss says, in tones which promise high umbrage in the future. I stop hovering near his door and slunk into the room, tail already between my legs even though I KNOW this is not going to be my fault.

"Where's all the detail on [x], [y] and [z]?" he demands.
"Um, I dunno." (Because hello, I didn't draft this, remember?)
"Damn it, I ALWAYS end up doing other people's work for them!" he suddenly explodes, banging his fist on the table.

I take an unobtrusive step back. This is not my fault, I have no clue what he's looking at, but somehow, in a mysterious alchemical way, this has become my fault. So I'm getting out of object-flinging range. Not that he's ever done that. Flung objects, I mean. But there's a first time for everything.

"Okay, you stand here and tell me the details of [x], [y] and [z]!" The boss waves his hand at a point about two inches away from his left shoulder.
"Okay," I say meekly, and sidle reluctantly within grabbing range. (Slinky at work with boss is completely different from Slinky at work with others.)
"Okay, what's this?"
I tell him. (Although my brain tries to desert me, as it always does when he talks to me. Somehow my recall and IQ drop to zero when he talks to me about work. I've talked to my colleagues - this is a phenomenon common to us all. He has whatever the mental equivalent of what a skunk's scent does to your sense of smell)

"And is this correct?" he says, gesturing impatiently at the screen, which I can't really see because his chair would otherwise wham into my stomach if I got any closer.
"Umm.." I say, squinting madly.
My two-second delay proves fatal and he loses the remainder of his patience.
"You know, I -" he is about to launch into a tirade. Then something occurs to him. "Why am I asking you. You didn't write this. Get Victim Number Two. Did you tell her everything?"

I nod frantically and scuttle off gratefully.

Victim Number Two sells me out and claims not to know anything, and I am summoned back into Dante's Inferno. Bugger.

Fortunately for me, this time the Boss refuses to waste time on oral communication. Whipping a sheet of paper at me, he says, "Okay, go to the terminal and write in the details!"

With that very cryptic command, I scurry off again,, my feet practically not touching carpet.

I trot back in about five minutes.

"No, send it to me by email, so I can cut and paste!" he snaps.

It's like trying to moonwalk on quicksand, I swear.

I dutifully type out my chicken scratchings, press "send" and pray the worst is over.

About ten minutes later he stomps over to my office and rattles off some extremely terse instructions, says, "I'll be back by 2!" and stomps off.

I spend the next hour trying not to (a) yell at my hopeless client who ensures that everything I do takes up to ten times longer than it actually needs to (b) run headfirst into the nearest wall. Eventually though everything is done, although I've nearly suffered an aneurysm doing it.

The Boss comes back, and I KNOW he's feeling a little guilty because he tells me to go and get lunch after all this is done.

I don't get to eat lunch until 8 pm.

Mind you, this all started off with work which I wasn't involved in.