When she finally finished giving them their anally detailed list of work orders for the day and left the room, those left behind were genuinely glad, yet rolled their eyes and shook their boggled heads just the same. They wondered how anyone arrived at this sorry point in her life, so miserable that all the unhappiness that thickly clouded her presence and soured the air took another whole 5 minutes to follow her out the door.
“When will she get a life?” one man wondered aloud to the rest of those with him.
“Hopefully, soon...really soon,” another replied as he threw down the pile of paperwork she returned to him for such minor revisions that only someone with too much idle time on her hands would’ve thought to make. A third, the sole female in the group, chimed in with, “Oh, it could not happen soon enough!”
“Yes, it would be nice if she got a life instead of trying to suck all the life from all of us,” the fourth summarized before collapsing back into his chair and sighing a deep sigh of sheer disgust.
They all had hit the nail square on the head and were so painfully accurate in their assessments of the woman’s personality deficits. She was their 52-year-old boss for as long as they were unfortunate enough to call the telecommunications company their employer. The simple and undeniable truth was that they were all growing more cynical just by being in her contagiously miserable presence.
Then there were her multiple daily e mails to them and the rest of the sales department staff which were always confusing and unclear. Staff believed she intended the e mails to be so vague and open for misinterpretation so later she could be sure that nobody did exactly what was expected. To an outsider this would’ve seemed so unlikely, but to anyone who knew her, and to the even fewer who overheard her admit so, the confusion was deliberate to provide her later with cheaply convenient grounds for disciplinary action.
“Didn’t she just say that she did not say this?” asked the female worker who pointed to a hard copy of the last e mail she received prior to the unit meeting. The e mail clearly stated one new policy for client acquisition that contradicted something that the boss said aloud to them minutes earlier.
“Yeah, then when you asked her for clarification on the glaringly obvious contradiction, she snaps on you!” the quiet one in the group threw up his hands and exclaimed to the female worker. The sole female sales rep was ever so sorry that she resigned from her lower paying job across town to join this low morale group.
“And you better stop posting her e mails on that office joke website, too!” the most tenured in the group warned the newbie in the department. The most tenured’s words of advice were met with group laughter.
“Why? How would she ever find out?” asked the rookie, laughing because some of her last department e mails won him $100 for the top weekly entry awards two weeks in a row.
“You are just jealous because I won the money and you didn’t think of posting them first,” he said.
“It is rumored that she sold her soul to the devil five years ago,” the quiet one in the group theorized to make them all continue to laugh. “Only the devil reconsidered and canceled the deal just to piss off God even more.”
The group broke out into louder, heartier laughter that stopped only when the boss unexpectedly returned to yell at them for not returning immediately to their offices to work.
“What is wrong with you people? Can’t you understand that the meeting was adjourned 5 minutes ago? Why are you still sitting here complaining about your jobs?” she asked them.
“We weren’t complaining about our jobs,” the most tenured spoke up and said. “We’re complaining because you nit pick at our work that is already great by national company standards just to create more busy work that we do not have time to do.”
His co-workers were in shock that the most tenured just said what he said. So was the boss who did not know what to say as her face turned several shades of angry red. Everyone else started to file out to return to their desks.
“I’ll see you in my office later. In the meantime, bring a list of all work you have that is not turned in yet to me,” she said.
Back at his desk, the most tenured compiled his short list. He was up to date with his work, unlike most of the department. While he worked on his list, the quiet one approached to express empathy for his situation and to thank him for speaking up for the rest of them.
“Maybe we were better off when she was smoking dope and grinding her crotch against desks,” the quiet one said. The newbie and the sole female overheard and did not believe what he said.
“Surely, you jest!” the newbie exclaimed. The female asked the quiet one not to talk about crotches grinding against desks in her presence.
“OK., I won’t again, but it’s true. She did things like that here and worse,” he commented.
“You’re serious?” she asked him and was surprised when he and the most tenured shook their heads yes in agreement.
“And nobody did anything about it?” she asked again in disbelief.
“Oh, someone in another department complained, and there was an investigation. She was seen by a few people also touching and holding her breasts. And she grabbed a man’s hand to lick icing from his fingers at a department gathering for that man’s going away luncheon,” the most tenured said.
The newbie laughed loudly and kept repeating, “No way! Were there any e mails about all of this?” he wondered, already counting on winning the next website contest.
“What happened with the investigation?” the sole female asked in horror of what she heard.
“The investigation team concluded that she and all members of management at the time behaved inappropriately, so nothing really happened to her,” the most tenured one explained. He added that almost everyone else higher up the corporate ladder supported her.
The quiet one looked at the female sales rep and said, “I don’t want to offend you by saying this, but had I done any one of those things here, I surely would have been canned or demoted immediately.”
“Girls on pot, gotta love them! Hags on pot, whoa!” the newbie exclaimed when he could stop laughing long enough to talk.
“She smoked pot here at work?” the female asked.
“No, but another cheese used to bring it in for any of them who wanted it. They smoked together after work and when out of the office at overnight seminars,” the most tenured said.
“Cheech, 3 o’clock” the newbie said to them to indicate the boss was coming their way. The rest started to scatter but laugh at his reference to the one member of Cheech and Chong, famous pot smoking comedians from the 1970s. From that point on, Cheech became her code name with them.
Later that afternoon, the five of them decided to stop for a drink together away from the office. They made a pact that they wouldn’t talk about work, but within two minutes, could talk of nothing else.
“What is the definition of the word several?” asked the most tenured.
The newbie correctly replied that it is more than two but less than many. The most tenured told them that he was written up for having several of his monthly reports submitted one day after deadline. He had 84 reports and two were submitted one day late.
“Cheech pulled a list and had to see and be able to count the two entries at the top of the list. Two of 84 is not “several,” he said and went on about how negative she is with every bit of supervisory comment about his work. Then the higher ups read her supervisory comments and believe that “several” reports were late and probably that the employee’s performance is going down hill.
“Meanwhile,” he said, “that young guy who goes out with them drinking is three months late with his reports and nothing is said.”
“Lets teach her a lesson,” said the most tenured and turned to the quiet one. The most tenured pointed out that the quiet one was in good graces with Cheech. She never criticized, reprimanded or insulted him. She never returned his work for revisions, even though the rest saw glaringly obvious mistakes in it sometimes.
“Are you having sex with Cheech?” the most tenured asked the quiet one.
“With her? You gotta be kidding!”the quiet one exclaimed. “You saw me push her off me when she tried to give me a lap dance that time!”
When they stopped laughing and explaining to the sole female that Cheech used to go out with them sometimes in the old days and Continue