9:16 p.m. | 2003-03-20 Breathing Easier In More Ways Than One. As you know, I finally broke into Fort Knox and acquired the gold that is my breathing meds. My breathing�s already better and will improve in the next couple of days as I get all the fluid outta my chest. Thanks for all your good wishes. They certainly helped. Okay, enough of that boring bullshit. Onto other boring BS. I don�t know if I mentioned it before, but I really have two full-time jobs. However, they�re rolled into one. Like a burrito. In other words, I get one salary and one workday in which to squeeze two full-time jobs. Here�s how that happened. I was refilling my glass of water a couple of years ago when someone resigned. As there was no one to fill her place at that moment, and I happened to be standing there and was qualified to perform the necessary functions, the (previous) Head Honcho asked me to take over until she was replaced. As it was a rhetorical question in nature, I inherited a second job. Completely unrelated to the job I was hired to do. Such is life. I went about performing this other job while eagerly anticipating the new person�s arrival. Due to a paperwork snafu, I knew who the replacement was going to be but it took more than six months to get him aboard. (We�ll call him Lucky.) After Lucky arrived, I gave him a two-week grace period and then called a meeting to hand over this extra job. Lucky handled this responsibility for about a week before the (previous) Head Honcho called him into a meeting and this happened. (HH:) So Lucky, what are you working on? (L:) Well, I�m doing this and that and the other thing. Oh, and I�ve been working on this too. (HH:) Why are you working on that? That�s CI�s job. I, very quickly, was summoned into HH�s office. (HH:) Don�t you do this job? (CI:) Well yes, but not officially. You asked me to take it over until Lucky got here. I was actually hired to do this other thing. (HH:) I don�t think it�s really something Lucky should be doing. I think it�s a legal matter so, really, don�t you think you should be doing it? Would you take it back? (CI:) Uh, sure. I�d be happy to. (Again, it was a rhetorical question.) Hence, Lucky is, well, lucky. However, since we�re down a person in our four-person division, I insisted this idea be revisited this year with the new HH. All agreed that I should punt it to the next unsuspecting victim, Diva Hair. (Really, she always has the coolest diva hairstyles. Plus she�s a law student.) So I met with DH yesterday. I bombarded her with all my files, tons of information and this interesting stuff. (CI:) Now this file� it needs to processed ASAP. It�s quite complex so I�ll help you on it. However, I want to tell you about it now because there are three different people who are going to be calling you on it. (DH:) Okay. (CI:) Let me just say that all three are, well, rather interesting people. There�s this guy, that lady� and then there�s the guygirl. Or girlguy. (DH:) What�d you mean? (CI:) Well, this one guy who�s gonna call� well, he�s in his early 20�s, but for whatever reason, he sounds exactly like a 40-year-old female. Like a female, uh, librarian. I don�t really know how to describe it, but he�s really a guy however he really, really sounds like a mature woman on the phone. It�s just, um, odd. (DH:) Okay. (CI:) See, you really need to memorize his name, which is gender neutral, because he�ll throw you off when he calls. You�ll be confused because you won�t connect the voice to a young man. And, he�ll just start talking and you�ll have no idea what he�s talking about because he doesn�t tell you which file he�s calling on. Trust me. Just memorize his name. (DH:) I�m confused. (CI:) I know. First, read everything in the file and then call me and I�ll explain it again. So, anyway, hopefully I�m back to only one full-time job, albeit the workload on that job has doubled from last year. I�ll miss my second job because I really liked it but I�m quite relieved also. Note how Lucky managed to still come out ahead. And, I no longer linger at the water cooler. I�m in and out of there like a flash. your thoughts? seed flower