The other day my boss and I were riding in the elevator together.
I like my boss. She's nice, she's competent, she cares about her job, she doesn't hold a grudge, she's fun to talk to, I can make her laugh, she always asks if I'm "too busy" when she asks me to do something outside my normal activities - she's perfect. She's also started talking about retiring next year, but I keep telling her she's too young. Good managers where I work are few and far between; I'd like to keep this one for a little while.
Also, following my big fuck up the other day (I forgot all about preparing these reports that she needs every month for a regularly scheduled meeting until the morning of the meeting. I walked in, my usual 15 minutes late, and had five minutes to do it. Needless to say, I failed to meet that time frame - I'd like to see you print, collate, and staple 16 sets of 8 page reports in five minutes - and had to finish it after she left, which meant I had to hand deliver the reports during the meeting. This meeting usually consists of about 15 other managers. That day, however, there were about 45 execs and big wigs in attendance. Embarrassing), she has not mentioned it or otherwise tried to impress upon me any kind of retribution or punishment (my co-worker also forgot her reports, but she gets to work a full hour before I do and so had more time to catch up). So I don't know. Will I do that again? You bet I won't.
Anyway, so I like my boss, and we're riding up in the elevator, and for some reason, we started talking about books. I don't remember why. And I mentioned that in high school, I had read all of Stephen King's novels (up to "Misery." And then I stopped. I don't know why), and how "The Stand" was one of my favorites. I also mentioned how I had enjoyed "From the Corner Of His Eye," by Dean Koontz, and some other titles, and also Stephen King's book on writing.
OK, so there were key words in that conversation that my boss didn't pick up on: "high school," and "I stopped." Don't get me wrong, I'm not a snob - I like horror when it's not too horrible, I really like the "Green Mile" books, I like cheesy sci fi and fantasy, too. Whatever. But then my boss asked if I'd ever read anything by Robert McCammon. I said no. We got to our floor and walked to our office.
The next day, "Swan Song" was on my chair.
I started reading it at lunch, and it's pretty horrific. In a nutshell, it's a World War 3 book. It's about the end of the world, caused by idiot politicians. There's an evil face-shifter dude who wants to kill everybody, an empathetic little girl who can grow things. A giant. A group of survivalists. A misguided youth modeled a la Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris (this book was published in 1987, 12 years before Columbine so my example is a little dodgy, I admit). There's a "crazy" woman who believes in Jesus, and a wise old man. It's post-apocalyptic cliche after cliche and it's horrible.
Today I went to lunch and had a little more time to read. I got through about 150 more pages. And now? And now I am going to stop reading it and instead, maybe, bone up on the synopsis at Wikipedia, and perhaps skip to the end so that I can at least make it look like I read the book before I give it back to her. I don't want to hurt her feelings, but damn. This book sucks.
Oh, and it looked like a brand new copy. I hope she didn't buy it specifically for me.
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