Tonight, my boss is participating in a Q&A session. The director who is coordinating this event asked, via her assistant, to find out what my boss, as well as a VP who is also participating in the event, might like as a thank you gift. They asked for our bosses’ hobbies, and asked for a little help in what a humorous gift might be.

The other admin emailed back first about her boss. She says:

She likes unique things. A good sense of hummer and is very unorganized!

When I was done crying from laughter, I sent her back a private note saying, “I’m fairly certain you meant HUMOR.”

Update: She emailed me back with this little gem:

oh gosh yes….ha-ha sorry about that…I really do not like hummers.

That’s more personal information than I wanted, but thanks for sharing.

Previously, I handled all of my boss’ travel on my own. Basically this just means that I would call the company travel agency who had his profile on file, and I would make arrangements directly with them. Well recently, the Powers That Be decided there were too many departments making travel arrangements on their own and started cracking down: All travel requests needed to be directed through one travel person who works for the company, and they arrange it with the travel agency. Basically they’re enforcing a middleman.

So, okay, I’m a team player. I receive the information for the upcoming roundtable and forward it to the middleman we will refer to as Travel Dude – TD for short. In the email I include our cost center so he can bill the trip, dates, the general time that my boss would like to arrive and depart, and so forth. Everything that TD could possibly want is in the email. I ask him to please book my boss a flight and reserve a hotel and get back to me.

Two weeks go by and no word from TD, even though I have been following up via phone and email.

This past Thursday, I finally get a response from TD: Please send me the dates.

The dates were already in there! So I email him back and say that rather politely. “Hello (TD), the dates are below. Thank you.”

I hear nothing for the rest of the day and nothing Friday. What I really wish I could do is at least reserve the hotel room, but Finance screwed up my boss’ corporate credit card and he didn’t get a replacement for the expired one. I’m still waiting. I told them about it a month ago and they said they were having another one sent to me ASAP. Two weeks later they called me and said they didn’t actually believe my boss’ card was expired. I read off the statement and they said, “Oh. Well, ok. We’ll send you one.”

I work with geniuses. But this is why I did not reserve a hotel room for my boss – no card to book it, and Tom would have a heart attack if he saw that deposit on our credit card. So my hands are tied.

So the last communication I had with TD was Thursday. Today is Monday. I get a phone call from TD asking me what is going on with the trip. Um, what? I say I am not sure and am waiting to hear back from him.

He asks me the following: What dates? Where is the conference? What cost center?

All of this is in the email, so I give him the answers right away. Because, you know, I can read. Immediately he starts balking at making the reservation. He says he doesn’t know where that is, he doesn’t even know what airport that goes into, he needs me to do all the legwork in telling him this information, including what time zone so he can work out the flights (I have no clue why he would need the time zone).

Again, most of this information was sent to him. I answer his questions, and say the airport is Anchorage.

Still the questions are coming – and all of the answers are either in the email or were given to him at the beginning of the call. TD sounds completely annoyed, and finally asks me where I’m finding all of this information. I say: It’s in the email.

He looks. The email says to book the hotel by a certain date or the group rate will be released and we’ll have to pay full price. He reads that off to me and says accusingly, “Well we blew this date out of the water.”

Like this is my fault?

But I remain calm. I really need to have this trip booked. So now he’s reading the email and he’s seeing the city names and he flips out.

TD: “I can’t book this unless it’s approved by (executive person’s name).”

Now I’m more than a little ticked off, because this executive approves all international travel, including anyone who needs to drive a few hours north to Canada. But we aren’t talking about Canada. As politely as possible, I ask why. Here it comes.

TD: “All international travel must be pre-approved. And while you’re getting the approval you need to check on (your boss’) passport.”

I almost threw the phone across my cube.

Me: “To Alaska? I’m pretty sure it’s ok, because it’s a state.” (pause) “Of the United States.” (another pause) “Of which we are citizens.”

TD: “Anchorage is –”

Me: “No.”

TD: “But you have to –”

I know what he’s going to say: You have to fly over Canada, which is another country. Oh my God, please, no. I can’t bear to hear him say it. I interrupt.

Me: “You don’t need a passport to Alaska.”

(Pause.)

TD: “Oh. Okay.”

I received flight options less than 5 minutes later.

So my boss decided he wanted holiday cookies in every division today. Earlier this week I called around and made sure I could get them everywhere. For my office, and our satellite building about 10 minutes away, I purchased about $100 worth of cookies at my local Wegmans.

Wegmans has their own in-house bakery and they make great stuff. I gave a couple of containers to our satellite office (they will probably only have about 15 people in there today) and the rest went to my building. It was a pretty nice spread, and I hoped to have, you know, 1 – 2 cookies per person.

Then I sent out the notice from my boss’ email saying the holiday cookies are out in the break room, enjoy and have a happy holiday. Or whatever I said.

No sooner had I sent the email that I look up from my monitor and the droves are returning from the break room and, not with one or two cookies as I had estimated, but platefuls of cookies. I don’t think there will be enough for everyone. If anyone ends up not being able to get any cookies, I’m going to direct them to the greedy jerks who took off with small mountains of them.

She stopped at my desk, greeting me in her nasally, mousey voice. It was passive-aggressive, I knew, and she was as likely to ensnare me in her trap as she had the last ten times she approached me with her stupid requests. My left hand was on the mouse by my keyboard, and I figured the cord could reach far enough that I could swing it around my head like a lasso and bean her on the forehead. The image in my mind was strong enough that I actually smiled back at her. She must have mistaken the kind of smile it was because she proceeded with her inane ramblings about needing someone to make 400 copies of something and having it distributed to the region. Or something. I was barely listening. My mind was on the floor in front of my cubicle where she was sprawled out, knocked unconscious by my small, black, plastic weapon with “Microsoft” printed on the top. She must have sensed that I was somewhere else, because she teeter-tottered closer with her spiked heels, trying to maneuver her 48-year old thighs through a skirt a 28-year old should have been wearing instead.

The smell grew stronger, thicker, as I watched her impending assault into my precious airspace. “Go away!” I wanted to scream, but the smell was too much – what if I opened my mouth and it got inside me? Perhaps this torture was her way of forcing me to bend to her will. But I would not. I had already fallen for it once when I was new, and I refused to do it again. I wanted to fight fire with fire, but sadly enough I am not the kind of person who can call upon flatulence at will.

She was still staring at me, waiting for me to volunteer. That was how she did things. She liked to suggest tasks that needed to be done, and then wait for you to volunteer yourself for the adventure, as if you were standing in line for Space Mountain. I had to hand it to her, to keep coming back to me for more punishment took serious balls. In fact, I was pretty sure that’s what she was hiding under that skirt. It was linen. It lets the boys breathe. In any case, I was still bound and determined to not do whatever it was that she wanted.

“Oh,” I say, and I turn back to my computer.

Then I ignore her. With most people, the “Ignore Them and They Will Go Away” Theory(tm) does not work. However, it works on her, and I will tell you why: Only the strong survive, and I am stronger than she is. Not in smell – I checked my pits earlier, and I was fairly certain, although I’m not above going for a second opinion. No, when it comes to battle, I am simply willing to go farther than my opponent. And my nose hairs were protesting so I had to act.

When she left, I could still smell her like she was standing on the other side of my cubicle wall, trying to stare through with laser beams that could shoot out from her eyes. But I knew she was gone, even though the smell remained. I had won another battle, although the war wages on, because that is how stupid she is.

She will be back.