11:23pm | 2004-03-17 Sometimes, I Ride Up On The Special Bus. I went to work this morning, as is typical on a Wednesday, and started to get all settled in. You know, flipping on the lights, computer and TV, right before heading down the hall to warm up my breakfast. Any regular reader knows how important breakfast is to me. Main meal right there. However, after two bites, NewBoss called me into his office to discuss one of my most complicated files. This is that. (NewBoss:) Cruel-Irony? Can I speak with you right now? (CI:) Be right there. (NB:) Good morning! (CI:) Good morning. (I said it with all the affect of a dead dog.) (NB:) About this file� blah, blah, blah. (That�s not what he said of course, but that�s all I heard. I�m so not a morning person.) (CI:) Yeah. Okay. Sure. I�ll change all that. No problem. (NB:) Okay. You�re not taking my constructive criticism well at all. Where are all the smiles and laughs? (CI:) No, no. That�s all good. You�re right. I�ll change it all up. (NB:) You seem to be, well, very �slow� today. Maybe we should talk about this later. (CI:) Yeah, because I apparently caught the �special bus� to work today. (Leaving his office.) (NB:) Wait. Close the door and sit down again. I didn�t mean to say that you�re �slow� in the �special bus� kind of way� I just meant that you�re� well, slow. You look like you�re gonna fall over. What�s the deal? (CI:) Uh, you interrupted my breakfast. (NB:) Oh my god. I�m sorry. What�s your blood-sugar level right now? (Note: I�m not diabetic, bit it's a problem.) (CI:) Pretty much nil. See, you interrupted my breakfast. (NB:) Why didn�t you just tell me that? (CI:) Perhaps because I should have breakfast at home, like, before I come to work? And, well, you didn�t ask me about that. You just started hammering away with all your questions. (NB:) You should tell me if I�m interrupting your breakfast. What are� were you eating? (CI:) Well, I was eating hot soup, but I�m sure it�s cold by now. (NB:) I�m sorry. We can talk about this later. Go and eat your breakfast. He�s learning that I�m not worth two cents if I�m deprived of food. Really. Then, I�m just bitchy and very, very tired. That�s not a good combination. And, my name has also changed over the last two months. Since I�m not gonna actually tell you what my name is, and Cruel-Irony doesn�t work in an analogy, lets just presume that my name is Playdough. Originally, he called me Playdough. Then, it was shortened to Play. Now it�s Plays. And, my name is actually a verb once you shorten it, and another verb when you add an �s� to it. That�s only funny because he shouts it out from his office so it startles everyone except me. And, perhaps, I�m the only one that finds that funny. We can move on now. Anyway, NewBoss called me into his office, again, after the end of the day. I was staying late to finish up something and so, well, he called me into his office. I wasn�t as �slow� as I was this morning, but meeting at the beginning of the day or at the end of the day (or way past that) isn�t really a good thing for me. I �shine�, if you will, in the middle of the day. That�d be right around lunch. Other than the blah, blah, blah, there was kind of a funny moment at our second meeting. NewBoss was mulling over something, while I was� well, here�s that. (NB:) (Reading aloud from my work.) (CI:) (Stretching both hands back behind my head and clicking the click-end of my pen on the wall while finishing the sentence for him.) (NB:) What the heck did you just do? (CI:) I finished the sentence for you. In your kind of words. (NB:) No. I mean, that other thing� what were you doing? (CI:) You mean this? (Doing the stretching-clicking thing again.) (NB:) Yeah. What is that? (CI:) I really don�t know what the hell that was, or is. I mean, I do the stretching thing � usually on my own time � but not that clicking thing. I�ve never done that before. (NB:) That clicking thing was weird. Why�d you do that? (CI:) I was hammering out the sentence. Apparently, sometimes I need to do some clicking to get a sentence. (NB:) What sentence? (CI:) That sentence of mine that you don�t like. See, I re-worded it while I was stretching and clicking. I guess you missed that part. (NB:) What�d you say? (CI:) Uh, I don�t really remember. You have to go back to that other part and read it aloud again, and well, I�ve probably lost the verbiage I had but I�ll try to recreate it. Trust me, it was good. (NB:) (Going back and repeating blah, blah, blah.) (CI:) And� (blah, blah, blah.) (NB:) Oh, that�s good. (CI:) Well, you know, sometimes I take a step off the �special bus�. Not often, mind you, but occasionally I like to dabble in something akin to the �regular bus�. (NB:) I didn�t mean �slow� slow. You know that right? (CI:) Yeah. Just yanking your chain a bit. His biggest complaint? I�m a very technical writer. I agree. That�s one reason � a main reason � why I keep this diary. That's not helping at this point, but I'd like to think it'll eventually pay off. To that end, he's "unofficially" already given me the days off that I need to attend JournalCon this year. (Damn them for moving it to my busy season.) Of course, he doesn't know the difference between a "writers' conference" and well, JournalCon. And, frankly, I don't think that he needs to be knowing that. So, that's a shaky yes to all who've inquired about my attendance. I kind of have permission but not quite enough yet to book airfares and whatnot. I'm not giving up hope though. your thoughts? seed flower