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I’m in a position to do something helpful for the victims of Hurricane Katrina on behalf of the company, but at least one hand is tied behind my back. The Boss has somehow heard of the devastation in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast. That’s a minor miracle in itself, if you know how insulated he is from anyone’s problems but his own. I mentioned the tsunami to him and then had to take twenty minutes explaining what it was. This is the kind of vacuum I’m working in here.
He phoned me out of the blue today and said we should send some money to the relief effort. The only condition he put on me was that it couldn’t have anything to do with the Red Cross. Since that’s the organization I associate with doing the most good in these situations, I was thrown a little by this. But I assumed I’d find plenty of groups willing to accept our money and spend it wisely.
Here’s the kicker, though. My challenge was to find a charity that Sean Hannity would approve of. Apparently Hannity mentioned on his show some way to help with relief efforts, and it caught the Boss’s attention (but not enough for him to remember any details). He asked if I knew who Hannity was and I said yes in a way that let him know I didn’t share his adoration for the man, a right wing pundit who poisons political dialogue with pompous demagoguery. (Other than that, he’s probably an okay guy.)
So I went to Hannity’s web site and found that the one click-through to a recommended charity took me directly to the site of (wait for it) the American Red Cross. I cannot wait to relate this to the Boss. I’ve come up with some alternatives, in case he refuses to change his mind.
What I want to do doesn’t matter, in the end, because he controls the money. And I don’t want to lose this chance to help, so I’ll do whatever he says. Sometimes I can steer him in the direction I want him to go, and sometimes I can’t. | 
