Wednesday, July 19, 2006

The Man

You know what's cool? The moment you realize your boss is pretty decent. And, trust me, those moments have been virtually extinct for me in the past few years.

I had a bit of a tough afternoon at work. Without going into too much detail, let me just say that the story I had been working on for MONTHS seemed to be crumbling before my eyes. I seriously thought that after all that work, all those phone calls, all that paperwork...This story was just going to die. The crappy part about it was that it was all through no fault of my own. If you know me, you know how I love the guilt and self blame, but in this case, I had asked all the right questions and still missed these little things that reared their ugly heads this afternoon.

Anyway, as it happened my boss was out of the office when the sh%$ started to hit the fan and no one seemed to know where he was. We left some messages on his cell but hadn't heard from him. I was a bit freaked because I had scheduled a shoots for this story and that meant that my boss was going to be flying to this state somewhere in the Midwest and he was supposed to leave in a day and a half. But, as it was looking, the story wasn't going to be there and I had no backups.

Finally, he comes prancing in - brand new sunglasses and a new haircut to match - and says "what's up guys?" You want to hate him, right? He disappeared to go buy shades and get a new do. What a jerk. Right?

So, I proceed to give him the blow by blow of what happened. He says, "hmm, let's look at the tapes." We sit, we look at the tapes, he has me pitch the story. He has me explain the glitch and, like some magical fairy (no pun intended although it kind of fits) he spins the problem away. And he doesn't stop there. He goes downstairs, gets the Executive Producer (who is having a REALLY BAD WEEK) to come upstairs so I can pitch her the story. By the time I'm done, my flatlined story has made her week and I look like some sort of hero.

Now, that's a good boss. As far as I am concerned he can go to the salon anytime he wants, as long as he prances in at just the right time to save my day.