Dance Like A Boss

My former boss was… well… terrifying.  At least he was terrifying to me.  Everyone else seemed to like him.  Physically he was a very imposing man.  He stood easily a head taller than most men and as a former Army helicopter pilot he knew how to command the attention of the room just by clearing his throat.  And to me, he was at his most terrifying when he didn’t say a word.  His silence spoke volumes particularly of the I-can-kill-you-with-my-pinky variety.

When you are awkward by nature adding fear to the mix only exacerbates things, which is why I mostly stood clear of my boss.  If I needed clarification on a project or a concern that needed attention, I would tell my coworker.  You see, she had a tendency to be sort of a tattletale and I knew that whatever I told her my boss would eventually hear about.  Once I knew that, “communicating” without actually speaking to him became a whole lot easier.

If my coworker was the tattletale, then I was the squeaky wheel. If there was a complaint to be made, I voiced it (to her). Unfortunately, my gossipy coworker quit and I found myself in something of a pickle.

For various unpleasant reasons that I cannot get into right now, morale amongst my team was low.  On the whole, there was a feeling that all of our hard work was going unnoticed.  This led to a decline in cheerfulness and a lot of deep, philosophical questions being thrown around, such as “why am I here?”, “who am I?”, “what is the meaning of life?”

After one particularly depressing conversation with my coworker, Oliver, I couldn’t take it anymore. Something had to be done! First, I tried to convince Oliver to go tell the boss what I told him to say. When that didn’t work I decided to take the bull by the horns, as it were, and talk to my boss.  Knowing that I tend to break out into a flop sweat when I’m nervous, I knew that I’d have to really prepare what I was going to say.  I practiced it in front of my mirror at least 1 ½ times the night before. At least.

 The morning had arrived. Time to talk to my boss.  My extremely intimidating boss.

Me: {Standing in doorway; clearing throat}

Boss: {Continues to read the document in his hand}

Me: {Louder clearing of throat}

Boss: {Continues to read the document in his hand}

Me: BOSS!

Boss: {Slowly raises his gaze} Yes?

Me: {Full flop sweat} Um… I have… Well it’s just that… I… I’m not happy! I mean, WE. We are not happy.  “We” being the team, obviously.  Not me and you.  Or is it you and I? You know, I always forget how that goes… hahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahaha {stop laughing you sound like an idiot!}

Boss: {Continues to give a steely gaze}

Me: Um… well, it’s just that…um… sir… morale seems really low.  I think folks would be a lot happier if we could get a bit more recognition for our work, because we all work really hard…and stuff.

Boss: In the Army you are given a mission.  You complete the mission.  You move on to the next mission.

Me: {Blink} But I’m not in the Army. I just think that you can maybe do something to lift the morale.  You know? {he doesn’t seem to be getting the concept of good morale}.  You know, like, MORALE?

* I begin to involuntarily do a bouncy-armed, side-to-side dance similar to the dancing Santa Claus decoration*

Boss: {Smirks} I suppose I can make more of an effort.

 Me: {WHY did you DANCE???!!!} Th-thank you, sir.

20 minutes later, Oliver comes into my office:

Oliver: Did you REALLY dance in Boss’ office?

Me: WHO TOLD?!

Oliver: Boss walked into my office cracking up because he said you did this sort of weird bouncy dance. He even tried to imitate you. If his dance was anything like what you did, then you are hilarious!

 Me: H-h-he imitated me? This is awful! All I wanted was to make things around here a little less tense.

Oliver: Well it worked; we haven’t laughed this hard in months!