I can be rather lazy at times, especially when I'm doing a routine job I've done lots of times. The current job was making out the Department Manager's monthly report. I just had to cut and paste sections out of the previous monthly report and the various divisional reports and that was it. I whipped through it and posted it off to the DM with time to spare. Once I had his formal approval I'd just send out copies to everyone concerned in time for the big monthly meetings the next day.
Just at knocking off time the DM came stalking into my little office and it was plain that he was in a real snit. He's new, taking over after heading up a smaller department elsewhere in the organisation. My old DM was a real sweetheart. He'd just been offered early retirement and had been happy to take it. This new guy was not a sweetheart.
I still didn't see what his problem was. I'd delivered his report on time.
He slapped a sheath of papers down on my desk. I could see at a glance that it was the report.
"What the hell is this supposed to be?" he snarled at me.
"It's the monthly report," I said, feeling rather blank. What the hell did he think it was?
"Really? Why don't you browse through it?"
So I opened up the report and oh - my - god, the first page had great big red circles on it. And that was the best page. The report was riddled with circles and cross-outs and slashes.
I was just staring at it, aghast. I mean, it was a standard report.
"Tell me," said the DM. "Did you read the instructions regarding your duties? The one I gave you when I became your new manager?"
Was he kidding? I knew my job, and the instructions he'd dumped on me were so thick it would take a month to read them. I'd looked at a few of them and shuddered, but I did intend to work my way through the manual. Sometime.
"Ah, not completely," I said cautiously. "I am working my way through it."
"Are you indeed? Did it occur to you to read the section on the monthly report before you started this month's report?"
You should have heard the honeyed sarcasm dripping from his voice.
"Um, no," I said, in a very small voice. "I just did the report the way Mr Evans always liked it."
"Mr Evans may have liked it like that, but no-one else did. Didn't he ever pass on the complaints about it?"
I just looked blank. Complaints? None that I'd heard of.
"Obviously not. Do you know why Mr Evans is no longer the departmental manager?"
"Um, we heard he took early retirement and was happy to take it."
"And we were happy to see him go. Why do think he was offered early retirement? I'll give you a hint. It wasn't because he was superbly efficient and did a wonderful job."
I took offense at that. Mr Evans had been a wonderful boss.
"I always understood that he had an excellent reputation," I said, speaking firmly to show I wasn't scared of this bully.
"He did have, once. His abilities have declined remarkably in the past couple of years. That's why he was offered a way out. We thought it would be inappropriate to fire him after all the years of excellent work he put in."
He gave me a few moments to digest this. Thinking back over the past couple of years I had to admit that he wasn't the manager he used to be. He often let things slide when he shouldn't. A bad habit I seemed to have picked up.
"Of course," the DM said in this very nasty voice, "the same doesn't apply where inefficient secretaries are concerned. Them we just fire."
Me? He meant me? He was going to fire me? He couldn't. I liked this job. I could do this job and I needed this job.
"What? You can't fire me," I protested. I saw the nasty look in his eye and hastily added, "Well, you can, of course, but you shouldn't. I'm really a very good secretary. I'll show you. I'll have the report redone according to the new guidelines before I go home tonight."
"Why should I let you? You obviously failed to read your instructions and just idle your way through your duties. I'm not helpless, you know, and I can get out the monthly report myself."
"But you've got more important things to do, sir," I said desperately. "Just give me a chance and I'll show you."
The miserable old bastard rapped his knuckles against the report.
"It seems to me that you had a chance and failed to show me," he said.
Snide swine. Still, I really needed this job.
"I may have grown a bit complacent," I said hastily, "but you'll find I am really quite efficient. Mr Evans wouldn't have hired me in the first place if I wasn't."
Thank god Mr Evans used to have a very high reputation. Mr Wolfe actually seemed to be taking this into consideration. Finely he nodded.
"All right. I'll be working back tonight. Have the final report on my desk before I go home."
He turned and stalked back out of my office, leaving me reaching for my new instructions to see how the report should be presented. I have to admit, the new format made a lot more sense than the old one, even if it did mean more work for the person putting it together. Me. Still, when I buckle down to it I'm horrendously efficient, and I had a real incentive to buckle down to it.
It took me several hours and it was quite late when I finished, but I got that report completed, and it was a very good effort, even if I do say so myself. I was feeling quite pleased with myself as I made my way to Mr Wolfe's office. I suspected that he and I were the last two people in the building. If I hadn't screwed up we'd both be at home right now.
I knocked and entered and put a printed copy of the report on his desk. I'd printed a copy, as well as sending it via email, to ensure that it printed neatly, with no awkward page breaks.
Instead of grabbing the report and starting to read it Mr Wolfe gives me a really cold stare.
"If you had been anything like efficient we'd both have been able to go home hours ago," he pointed out.
Did he really think I didn't realise that I was still at work instead of relaxing at home, eating a nice meal?
"Yes, sir," I said. "Sorry, sir." I still needed my job.
"I was thinking that some sort of penalty is called for. Something other than just putting a nasty note in your personnel file. You seem to want to keep your job and if this report is anything like a decent report then I'll say you're entitled to be given another chance. So I've come up with an interesting little punishment that I'm sure you will detest."
He gave me a very nasty smile, but I wasn't going to comment. Let him lay it on the line. He did.
"I'm going to get you to bend over the desk next to me while I go through the report. Any time I find an error I'm going to give you a very firm spank on the bottom. You had better hope that I don't find many errors, hadn't you?"
"You can't do that. You can't make me."
"True. Let's put it this way. You can tender your resignation or you can drop your panties and tender your bottom. The choice is yours."
Bastard. I was fuming. The report was good, I knew that, but what if he invented mistakes?