I was trying to put  things in order for the financial directors regarding some rather heavy repair work Seaview needed after the Plankton mutant almost destroyed her. I was rather anxious to get it done. A bit too anxious. Everyone was staying well clear of me.  I was used to that. But, to my utter shame, I  apparently chomped a bit too hard on Angie, my indispensible and tough as nails Administrative Assistant, who began to cry.

Letting her go for the day, and hoping she’d accepted my apology, I  sort of drafted Lee to do the spreadsheet instead. Surely he could   tabulate the costs and other expenses by 5 pm.

Nothing fazes that boy, for he regularly walks right in where angels fear to tread. In fact, a few hours later he was grinning like a schoolboy as he handed me the spreadsheet, not that he did it to earn a few brownie points of course. Lee’s not like that.

It only took me a minute to see that there was something terribly wrong with his numbers…had he ever used spreadsheet software before? I was beginning to doubt it.

I could tell he was crushed before I could even verbalize what was wrong. I got the feeling that it wasn’t so much that  he’d gotten his columns and rows out of synch, but that he’d disappointed me.  Boy, did I feel like a real heel now. I had no choice. It was all my fault anyway.  Lee’s a sub driver, not a secretary.

Looking at his woeful expression, I decided the hell with it. Let the directors stew a little. Was I the boss or not.  So I dragged Lee off to McDonalds and we spent some quality time to just forget things for awhile and just be friends.  

One thing though, before I headed back to the office, and told Lee to go on home, I grinned and couldn’t help saying , ‘Don’t quit your day job, Lee.’