Breakin' Up 2: Employer Blogaloo

I am totally falling off the blog wagon. The blagon. Or whatever. (At long last, Marketing has finally stumbled on a decent radio station that is now playing "Heroes," by David Bowie.) It has been an incredibly, painfully, shockingly, cruelly, miserably stressful couple of weeks, culminating in yesterday's decision that I'd had it at work. I wrote my boss an email that literally said, "We need to talk," and am now fantasizing about breaking up with her. I'm imagining something like this:

I invite my boss to lunch at "our restaurant"---the cafe of the Oakland Museum where we've spent so many afternoons enjoying various salads and facilitating digestion with long walks through the sculpture garden. I have planned ahead, and paid the cafe pianist to play only break-up songs; now, the piano blows the soothing notes of Patsy Cline's "I Fall To Pieces," Prince's "Nothing Compares 2 U," and Wilson Phillips' "Release Me" into the air like so many directionless kisses. I am sitting at our favorite table, on the edge of the patio beneath the vine heavy trellis. Laid before me is the Tabouleh Salad, stabbed gently with two forks.

And then, there she is, breezing through the cafe doors like she did at our first interview all those months ago. For a moment, seeing the familiar slant of her Mont Blanc pen peeking from her left pocket as if crossing her heart, the easy grip of her black leather day planner in her elegant typist's fingers, the barely perceptible swish of her MBA in her confident swagger, I question my resolve. In the afternoon light, surrounded now by the mournful chords of Abba's "Fernando," she looks so professional. Should I reconsider? A shiver runs down my spine and my savings account as I remind myself of the weeks of consideration I've put into making this decision. I will press on.

"Employee," she acknowledges me, folding crisply into the chair, "I'm sorry if I'm late---I got hung up talking to Prissy the Psycho over at La-La-Leather-Land. Mmmm, is that tabouleh? My favorite!" I am silent for a minute as she lifts a measured bite to her mouth and chews methodically. Taking a deep breath, I begin.

"Boss---"

"Yes, employee dear?"

"Boy, these last few months sure have been a hell of a ride, huh?"

"They sure have," she says, slowing her chewing. A vague glint of concern appears in her eyes like a cursor on a freshly roused computer.

"It's just that...for the past few weeks, I've been feeling a little, I don't know, different. It's, I mean, when I first started I was so excited about forging ahead, about the possibilities, about the sample toys and design contests and porn conventions, only now...now..."

"Now what?" she says, pulling the Mont Blanc from her pocket and rolling it over her pin-striped thigh.

I feel as if I can see inside her---see all the way inside, down deep into the glowing Excel spreadsheet of her soul as an incomplete numeral segment is introduced to column F8, eliciting a silent and boldface Does Not Compute. "Well, now...now the excitement has worn off and I am faced with nothing but naked impossibility. It's not just Prissy the Psycho, it's that all of our vendors are jerks. The vibrating false teeth guy has called me every hour on the hour for 2 weeks! And if that weren't bad enough, our own people are turning against me. Yesterday, Sandy Licious emailed me and called me an insensitive flaggist for suggesting a union jack dental dam; the day before that, Brenda Moon-Lavender-Aphrodite pointed out that I was discriminating against cement by having allowed Marketing to name the vibrating blender 'The Mixer.' I just, I can't---"

"But I've told you I'd help you with that stuff," her voice is raised now, her affect desperate. "I'll deal with them for you! I'll tell them to back off! I'll, I'll, I'll..." and she begins to sob.

"Don't do this, Boss. Don't do this to us. This is hard enough as it is---this was not an easy decision. Please, bossy, please," I beg as I feel my will begin to crumble.

"No," she rebuffs my hand as I reach for hers. "I don't need your consolation. I DON'T WANT YOUR PITY!"

I look at the half-finished tabouleh, and consider the crumbled remains of the half-finished salad of our relationship. "Then all I can say is, I'm sorry. And, cliche or not, it's really not you---it's me. I'm not cut out for this 9 to 5 world, not ready for the desks, the MicroSoft Outlook archive function, the code for new Access databases. I'm sorry, Boss. I'm so sorry."

She pauses for a moment, takes a deep breath, then stands and brushes a few invisible tabouleh crumbs from her blouse. "No, employee. I'm the one who is sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't make you happy. I'm sorry this didn't work. And I wish you well, but I don't think we should see each other for a while. I...I need time."

"I can give you that," I whisper to the table, barely audible over the crescendo of Simple Minds' "Don't You Forget About Me." "I just can't give you my heart." But she is already walking away, across the empty patio, past the sobbing piano and out onto the lonely Oakland sidewalk.

(Now playing on Marketing radio: "Walk Like An Egyptian.")