Friday 4:30pm

(this actual real dialogue that came about between my boss and I while discussing a time off request turned in by one of my staff and how I would go about handling it. This was the last day of my first week of work.)

Me: "So she wants 2 days around Thanksgiving and 2 days around Christmas."
Boss: "One way to handle this would be to bifurcate the request....Do you know what that means?"
Me: "No."
Boss: "Oh, you need to know this! This term is used a lot in legal circles!"
Me: "ok"
Boss: "It means to cut in half."
Me: "Ok, so what do you mean by bifurcate?"
Boss: "Just exactly like it sounds, if I took a machete and cut you right in half."
Me: "......ok....but what do you mean in regards to this request?"
Boss: "What do you think I mean?"
Me: "Cut her vacation time in half?"
Boss: "No, what is her request made of?"
Me: ".....paper?"
Boss: "No, it's made of two seperate requests. So you could split them up and decide upon them seperatly."
Me: "ok" (try not to roll my eyes and sigh)

This is about the time I gave up on trying to see the good in my boss. If you know me at all you know how hard conversing with this type of person is going to be for me. I like straight talk, not pop quizzes and he does that pretty much all the time. Here's how the same conversation could have been done at about 10 times the efficiency:

Me: "So she wants 2 days around Thanksgiving and 2 days around Christmas."
Boss: "You could always split the request up by dates and decide on them separately."
Me: "Ok."

Ta Da! I just made him into the best boss ever!

Truthfully, I really like the job so far and I really like 99% of everyone I work with. They seem to really have a good working relationship with one another and are very willing to help and explain things etc. If I have one prayer it is for my own self confidence. If I have more of that I know dealing with the 1% of people that have proven themselves to be arrogant and condescending will be a snap.