The Coffee

She drinks instant coffee. Heat water, throw coffee in, stir and voila, ready to drink. That's the warm version, the cold version is called frappe...  but we' ll stick to the warm one for now.  

Second day at work and she needs her morning coffee. Calls the intern to ask for warm water.  

I ll transfer her exact instructions as the door was open and I could hear the conversation. 

"You take this cup and wash it well, then put it on a small plate and next to it put a tablespoon.  You warm the water not to boil, not too cold, when it's about to start bubbling you take it down and fill the cup, not to the top, leave a couple fingers to the top because i want to add milk."

Intern takes the cup and leaves her office mumbling.  

A few minutes later the intern delivers the cup to the boss's office... 

"No - no - no, you add a bit more water." 

(Crap... the intern's thrown all the remaining hot water away).  

Starts heating water again. Fills the cup, takes it to the boss.  

"No - no - no, the water's not warm enough...  you warm it a bit more."

Intern gets out of her office chuckling  (thankfully). 

Starts heating water for a third time -since we got the portion right it should be easy to get the temperature right- she thinks.  Refills the cup, delivers it to the boss. 

"NO - NO - NO (annoyed now)...  you've put too much water in there..." 

The intern breaks out laughing, i start laughing, boss's secretary starts laughing...  boss goes and heats her own water.  

Next day she tried the water thing with another intern...!

Merry Christmas!

Or merry as can be. 

While I'm writing about the past, new things happen so I decided to go with the incidents as they occur and when nothing happens, I will be writing about past events. In fear that I might forget to write about something really funny or odd or weird or even ugly I will keep this thing as updated as possible. 

It's Christmas Eve but a working day anyway.  The mood is festive, folks come to work a bit later, are dressed a bit fancier, bring something sweet or salty to share with each other, are nicer, kinder, smile more, and we're  all hopeful that the day will be a little shorter, a little merrier a little less professional.  

The boss, shows up around 10am, dressed in a blindingly bright red suit, carrying a plastic bag with previous day's paperwork that she'd taken with her  at home.  Smiles,  says good morning, rushes in her office, shuts the door and stays in there quietly for a few minutes.  A little later her door opens and calls for an intern who's working in my department to go fetch her a bunch of homoeopath medication but not from the pharmacy that's close to where we work cause their medicines suck!  Instead, the intern has to go farther to a better pharmacy.  This figured out, she brings out a document that she'd corrected at home and called for the one who'd written it, to get it back and deal with the corrections.  

Time was passing, phones were ringing, work was getting done, hopes were kept high for an earlier departure, the intern came and went a few times until she got the right homoeopath and this particular document kept going back and forth from (let's call this employee Olga) Olga's office to the boss's.  Was past noon... actually way into the afternoon when I heard Olga screaming and saw her supervising deputy manager storming into the boss's office.  The door closed behind them but their voices raised higher and higher and for one more time, penetrated the walls and doors and travelled into the entire division and to the nearby streets.   

Apparently this document was in constant motion between the two offices all day.  Corrections for periods, commas, bulletins, numbering, alignment, more commas and periods, apostrophes, tabs, spaces between words....  but nothing about the content!  From what I found out later on, she would correct one period, give the document back, they'd return it to be signed,  the boss would again give it back with something new added or excluded... never in content always in punctuation or form (sometimes even correcting herself).    

Things exploded when Olga lost her patience and started weeping and complaining that it has been impossible for her to finish anything for the past couple of months, that each document was a struggle, that the boss's corrections have no substance or meaning.  Deputy decided to solve the issue (rather radically) by confronting the boss.  

Niceties were exchanged in the context of "you are impossible, you can't be serious making such corrections all day", "talk better to me and don't throw papers on my desk", "I'm holding the papers I didn't throw them on your desk", "you did", "you are a liar and you're out of your mind", "get out of my office now", "I am getting out and not coming back", "tell Olga to come here immediately", "I m not taking orders from you"...   boss getting out of the office, screaming Olga's name, Olga rushing in -door open- "you've been impossible with your corrections", "you shouldn't mind corrections, I have been corrected millions of times in my life", "yes but for serious matters not for minutiae", "instead of crying and going to your deputy you should have come to me", "come to you for what?", "to say you were bugged by my corrections", "I was overwhelmed, you're clearly impossible with what you do to documents, particularly to ones that stay here and nobody sees them", "no one of you knows how to write a correct document and you have to learn"..... argument climaxed and I no longer had patience to listen to them so I closed my office door. 

It was way past our designated leaving time when things calmed down eventually and we were able to exchange wishes and finally go home, leaving the boss, the document and office life behind.  

Merry Christmas...  

P.S.  She (the boss) stated, she should be a doctor first and foremost (because she knows things about homoeopath  medicine -medicine she actually "prescribes" to everyone at the office who might complain for a flu or a headache- without her holding a license for that!).  

The Person

She dawned on us on October 4th 2010 with 17 boxes from her previous division and the attitude of a president.  Petite, middle aged (around her 55) with a pair of geeky glasses and a leopard suit that fit a circus trainer. Her facial features totally misleading for someone mild, her voice high and shrieking bringing you back from the dead.  

Her work background rather limited to a good knowledge of loans for corporate clients (our division deals with corporate clients but for everything else except loans).  

Her first observations were about the condition of her office: Too dirty, too old (the division is  housed at a 150 year old neoclassical building), too small, limited storage space, the bathroom needs plumbing, the walls need painting, I need a fridge in my office, why is the pc placed here, the chair's too tall (petite remember?),  I don't like the trash can, the paper shredder has papers in it, the safe must be moved to another room, take those plants out of here, tell the cleaning lady I want a word with her, why are there fingertip traces on the desk glass, where do you make coffee, bring me hot water, why is the building old (why is the damn sky blue?) e.t.c.  

Second shock came when she opened the drawers and bookcases and realized they contained files that the previous manager had purposely left there for her to study or use as a guidance.  She needed space for her files and personal belongings, so we had to start moving the ones already existing right away,  before she even had time to evaluate them.

We did try to explain that what she brought with her would probably have no use for our division but that didn't change her decision.  Thankfully, we never threw the old files away, knowing that one day, she might decide to take a look at them.   

So we were there, with her secretary to be, taking notes of her observations and the future alterations we'd need to organize for her. 

The entire day went like this, no word about what the division does, or about meeting the rest of the division's crew.  Her voice floated in the air penetrating the walls, travelled to the other offices where the rest of the division's employees were gathered giggling, permeated the windows and vanished into the late fall air of October!  

More later!

Preface

The phone rings at 6am every morning, and a very dearly voice reminds me  it's time to put my "feets" on the floor and wake up.  Soon after this I am up, feeding my critters (Scots the yorkie and Asterix the stray cat) while the coffee is dripping and pc drags itself to life.  There are 15 minutes of on line chatter after which I am heading for a shower.  The hair and dressing drama follows and once these are done, I am out the door heading to work (either on foot or in a cab).

  

I am pretty dedicated to this routine, that breaks only during weekends, only to be replaced by the weekend routine.  But that's irrelevant.  

I work for a Bank, as a department manager to its corporate key account services division and that's important to remember because what I am going to talk about here is the insanity of our recently appointed manager.  I don't know who you are or where you come from, what you do or what your quirks are but you must have dealt with someone in your life that was either your boss, supervisor or orders-barker. You probably have outlined in your head a manager's profile and you know his purpose in life is to annoy you.  

Mine is unique. 

How unique, you will have to find out in the entries that will follow.  

The names used here will be fake.

Everything else is/will be real.