Some Things, Even Guilt Can't Overcome

Not long ago, my boss and I had a call in which he started off by telling me, "So you might not know this about me, but I grew up in Catholic schools ..."

It may be said with a grin, this is hardly surprising news - but his raconteourish point was that he is a guy who knows from guilt.  And a day he was planning to try to work remote, he had decided he must count as a day off, because he was going to spend a couple hours of it on personal/family business.  It might sound pretty funny for someone to feel enough Catholic Guilt to turn a day on which he would be taking at least four calls, and (I know him) staying online and responsive into personal time off - but I actually know that sense of duty, that self-expectation EXTREMELY well.

However.  We all do have our limits.  Right?

I flat out left work early today, and though ordinarily this would be a cause, for me, of seriously well-crafted invisible maternal guilt trippery (my mom constructed my appreciation for Consequences with unparalleled excellence, it must be said) ... not so this time.

There were more people in the office today even than yesterday or Monday, so the discomfort I have been having - most acutely, yesterday - dissipated enough for me to be distracted from it most of the day.

Ahh, but people do have a way of leaving earlier than I do.  My hours schedule me on Thursdays to 5:30 p.m.  And I am conscientious - I stay until 5:35, unless I stay longer.  There's usually little advantage in leaving early (unless you leave *significantly* ahead, it's simply not worth it traffic-wise), so I really just don't.

But today, I found I was alone with him.  Beyond my visceral loathing for this guy - I do feel justified in managing my outrageous discomfort with any situation in which I am alone in a silent and empty building with him (it was in such circumstances he misbehaved last year).

So my butt left EARLY today.  I was gone by 4:30, not a "happy Thanksgiving" so much as mumbled over the cube wall.


I wonder whether his contract will *ever* end.

At least I know our whole project someday will.


I left work early today, and not a *scintilla* of guilt about that.  It was more important to do the right thing as a woman, today, than to observe the nicety of sitting at a desk, for an hour, when nobody else (but him) was at theirs.