My Boss

by Olivia Cunning

Have you ever worked for someone who drove you absolutely nuts? Who is hypercritical of everything you do? Expects you to work overtime and triple overtime for no extra pay? Expects work, work, work and no play?

Yeah, I have one of those bosses. Let me tell you about her.

She forces me out of bed at 8:30 in the morning. The nerve! Okay, so it's actually my bladder that forces me out of bed, but by then, the boss is already interrupting my dreams with plot twists, bits of character conversation, extraneous background information, and my heroine's favorite breakfast food. Mmm, breakfast. So I stumble downstairs half-awake and make myself a cup of hot tea. Before my tea has even finished steeping, my insanely demanding boss is shoving me into my office, and insisting that I have to get those thoughts that awoke me out on paper before I forget them. By the time I return to my tea, it's cold, but hey, that's why microwaves were invented.

My office

You'd think my boss would give me a coffee break (or a tea break), but as soon as the microwave has made the hot tea hot again, she's got me back in the office chair writing out a short synopsis of the scene I will write next. Next thing I know, my tea is cold again and my boss is shoving my alphasmart NEO in my hands and forcing me out on the deck to write that freshly plotted scene. Yeah, there's a wonderful view of the Gulf of Mexico from that deck and the sun is shining and the seabirds are flying about, but will she let me enjoy it? No. She expects me to write. Write, write, write, Olivia. So I write until my fingers are numb and my brain is like mush and my stomach reminds me that it's time for lunch.

Do you know how hard it is to write while this view is demanding your attention?

Finally, a break! Except my boss expects me to do the dishes I neglected the night before and to eat standing over the sink, before she's shoving me back into the office to plot the next scene of the day. But I need to take a shower, I complain. Fine, but make sure you are plotting more scenes in your head while you stand under the stream of water and stare blankly at the wall. Now that I'm no longer smelly, she decides to let me check my email (why thank you!) and deal with the other side of this crazy job for an hour, but then it's back to writing. I admit, she usually lets me take a walk in the afternoon, but she's always making me think about the book, even when I should be taking a break. Occasionally, she allows me to watch TV, but either ends up making me feel guilty for wasting time, or is looking for ideas to use.

So it's 10:30 pm and the boss reminds me that I have to write this blog post and she's a bit upset that I fell asleep on the sofa after dinner instead of writing a third scene for the day. So those plans I had for going out to lunch tomorrow will have to be cancelled so I can get caught up on writing again. Do you see how unbearable she is? She even makes me work when I'm asleep. Who does that?

This boss of mine is unbearable, but the job is the best in the world. I get to tell stories for a living. Stories about sexy rock stars, who surprise me with their depth and the beauty of their souls.

Dreamy sigh...

Yeah, yeah, boss. I hear you. Stop daydreaming and get busy!

So what's your boss like? Wanna trade?