Winter Is Coming ...

I spent nearly the entire day working on my office.  I cleaned ... I shredded ... I dusted ... I separated and sorted and packed.   I sat aside good inventory ... and pitched things that should've been pitched ages ago.   At the end of the day, I was quite thoroughly exhausted.  Thank goodness for Stoney and tacos ... otherwise I might've just curled into a fetal position in my foyer and stayed there until the morning.

Worse yet?  I'm not nearly finished.  I have a tub of toys to drop off at Goodwill and a box full of personal photo albums and things I want to keep.   Don't get me wrong.  I'm making good progress ... it's just a matter of getting rid of two decades worth of clutter.   Twenty three years of thinking, "I might need this documentation later ..." has caught up with me in a wicked way.

Our "big boss" drove up from St. Louis for a meeting ... and I had to walk him through the computer room and help him move a workstation.  He and I have an odd relationship.  We get along and I can tell that he likes me ... but it also annoys the hell out of him that I don't treat him with the deference that he's used to.  He's used to a level of treatment that we just don't give to anyone in our office.  Our Directors and our Deputies have always been shown respect ... but we also joked with them and talked to them like they were "one of us." 

My new boss, on the other hand, acts like this is an office-themed Game of Thrones ... like we're in Westeros and I'm not showing proper respect to the King.  Sorry, Robert Baratheon ... I'm Arya.  My office is Winterfell and it's dying ... and there's only one thing we say to death.  Not today.

Even when I try to watch my tongue, it gets the better of me.  In the computer room, he was a little upset that we had equipment that previous employees should've surplussed ten or fifteen years ago.  After inspecting everything, he stood in the room in complete silence ... just looking around.   I gave him a minute or two before asking, "Okay then, are you happy?"  He gave me a stern look and said, "No, I'm not happy." 

I smiled and said, "I'm sorry ... let me rephrase that ... are you done here?"  He looked taken aback ... like I'd pooped right there on the raised floor.  I laughed and said, "It's all good ... you're paying me the same whether I stand here and watch you stare down the machinery ... or if I sit at my desk and compile the press release.  Either way works for me."

He didn't laugh.  He doesn't laugh.  He doesn't have the same sense of humor that we do ... and it shows.  No one is connecting with him ... but, in the end, it doesn't matter.  Only two of us will be working for him after September 20th ... so I suppose he doesn't feel the need to bond with us.  Then again, I have six days left and I won't be getting an evaluation this year, so I don't feel the need to gain the acceptance of someone who is distant and indifferent.

Never thought I'd be happy to be unemployed ... and I'm not ... but today, for the first time, I'm not heartbroken that I won't be working with this agency anymore.  And for someone who used to think of her co-workers as family?  That's sad ...

It's good to be king
And have your own way
Get a feeling of peace
At the end of the day
And when your bulldog barks
And your canary sings
You're out there with winners
Yeah, it's good to be king

Tom Petty - It's Good To Be King