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The Boss is in Texas now, and he told me today he'd be there for at least a month. I don't mind, I guess, except that Texas is two time zones away. That gives me some obstacles to overcome.
He has his own problems with the temporary move. He claims to be all set up with a desk, a phone and a fax, but he hasn't figured out yet how to make all his equipment work right. I've had several calls from people he's given his new number to. They all said the number must be wrong because it was answered with a fax tone.
He'll figure it out eventually, because he's motivated. He hates being unconnected. You can tell that much by how many times during the day he'll call me. I always know he's not getting enough phone calls to satisfy his needs, because those are the days my phone rings off the hook. (Which is where I should probably leave it, if I dared.)
His connection difficulties are not the biggest problem I have with his move. Lemme 'splain. On most days, even when we're in the same time zone, he starts work at least two hours before I do. That two hours has now become four hours. By the time I'm up and alert and ready to go, he's managed to accumulate a backlog of pointless assignments and wacky questions. He's eager to get started, when all I want to do is suck on my coffee cup and try to shake off another endless night.
I won't get up earlier so he can spend Christmas with his girlfriend's family in Texas. If I had a different job that required me to be in an office somewhere at a ridiculous hour like seven o'clock in the morning, I'd do it. I wouldn't like it, but I'd do it. And if I'd been the Boss's lackey for just a few months (or maybe even a few years), I'd change my way of life for his convenience. Maybe.
But we've been together for more than seventeen years, and he depends on me more than I depend on him. All I get out of the relationship is enough money to sustain my modest lifestyle. That and a bunch of empty promises about bonuses and profit-sharing, none of which is a remote possibility now or probably ever.
If he wants me to continue reading his mind (and his handwriting), and doing what he wants before he even knows he wants it, he'll just have to keep putting up with my quirks and foibles. Maybe no other employer would cut me that much slack, but you have to believe that no other office manager could step in and learn to deal with his highly volatile, borderline unstable personality.
After all, it took me seventeen years to get to this point. Nobody before me lasted seventeen months, or even seventeen weeks. When I was hired, the over/under in the office pool was much less than that. | 
