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Well, that was a pretty tough week. I thought I was going to be able to work from home a bit, but that changed on Tuesday morning. Bleh, another 4 am wakeup, out the door to my not so favorite town, Yuma again. I guess I knew it better than anyone else. Or some other such reason.

I wasn’t feeling sociable, and that caused a bit of friction with some other out of town coworkers, one of whom clearly felt that he was a bit of a “party animal”. For any gentlemen reading this, bragging about sexual adventures (however obliquely) is not fit conversational material, am I clear on this? But he played well off the other woman in our group, who’s the type who feels that talking dirty back would make her one of the boys. I had to work with these idiots for four days, and they did well enough, but clearly weren’t respecting my need for a private evening. Cold fish, yep, that’s me.

Fine, they could feel that way (I DO socialize with coworkers. But I have to like them), but it was interfering with the work environment, as they say. So a couple of days into it, I pulled rank (I was technically in charge) and took the man aside.

“Look, Scott,” I said. “I’m sorry that you don’t like working with me. I know you were hoping to have more fun out here, and I guess I’m just not that much fun.”

“What?” he said. “Hey, that’s not true, you’re great to work for.”

“Don’t fib. I’m not looking for affirmation here.” I then switched from cold fish to warm smile. “Look, you do your job well, and I appreciate it. But I’m not your buddy. When you go on the road, some bosses WILL be your buddy. Not me. But some also will be total jerks, ok? Unlike me, you carry on like this around one of those guys, and you’ll get a reprimand, maybe even get fired if they decide to push it.”

“Hey, what did I do?”

(For the record, little stuff like singing “You’ve Got That Loving Feeling” every time I walked into the office, and laughing in a deliberately sarcastic manner when I’d tell a secretary a joke. “Yeah, she’s Comedy Central material all right!” That and the aforementioned sex talk. “But you’re married, so your life is over, huh?”)

“Nothing you don’t think you can get away with. And you’re right in this case. I’m not going to write you up. You’re a nice guy, and work hard. But you need to watch yourself.”

Things went better from there. He shut up, and acted a little scared around me, being over courteous, that sort of thing. “Trixie” (as I thought of our resident floozy) seemed to pick up on the vibe, too; perhaps Scott had said something to her. Whatever. I got the results I wanted.

But I really hate doing things like that. Why can’t I just put people in their place, or not let situations like that develop? I mean, I didn’t actually do any leadership stuff. I invoked the awful, possibly imaginary “other supervisors”. It’s like mothers who say “wait until your father gets home”. It’s a cop out.

But at the same time, I hate correcting people. Why can’t they just behave in the first place? I feel like I have to put on this “Bossy V” act, and I don’t like myself when I do that. Maybe Gaia has made me realize that underneath the professional exterior I have at work, I’m really just a little girl who likes to play games and chat with people. I don’t like being mean, even to people who deserve it. I find that Real Life Avatar of “Boss” much more tiring than “Pirate Queen.”

Well, at least I’m not usually in that position. I got home Friday morning, and Oxbridge packed up the car for me to drive to Long Beach where I had some work there and at LAX. I spent that evening driving about the disaster that is the SoCal freeway system. But I only had to take care of myself, and when I got there, the hotel was beautiful, cool, and very quiet. I walked about the Queen Mary, had a nice dinner, followed by a hot cup of chamomile. I was away from home, yes, but I was content at that moment. I have no idea why others want to “be in charge” of people. I hate it. Right there, sipping my tea, looking at the window at the Long Beach skyline, I was only in charge of Virginia. And she was doing fine, thank you very much.

Pirate Queen says YAAAAR! pirate

V.