You don't know how close I came to canceling my vacation today. The Boss knows, because I told him. I think that's why he backed off. I think that's why the vacation is still on.

The morning was hectic, but I expected that. What I didn't expect was that something would get jammed up in my printer software and I'd have to do an hour of diagnostics and troubleshooting before I could print anything. That was part one.

Part two? The Boss suddenly decided he wanted to go over the month-end figures we're sending to the accountant. He didn't understand them, and I didn't know how to explain them to him without getting off the phone, doing another elaborate supplementary spreadsheet, and then spending another hour explaining that to him.

It ended up that my numbers were right all along. He didn't like it, but he couldn't find anything more to argue about. He knows by the sound of my voice when he's pushed me as far as I can go. Plus, I told Julie about all this and she told him to lay off me. Oddly, a few minutes later he phoned and said, "I think we're about done with this."

Yeah, I think so too.

In the midst of all this, I managed to find a way to make things worse. I had a phone call from someone I didn't know about a possible future project. It wasn't a cold sales call, but an actual, construction-related inquiry of the type that sometimes leads to thousands of dollars in revenue. (More often it's a dead end, but you never know.)

I made the mistake of giving this woman the Boss's direct number. (Because you never know, you know.) A few minutes later she called me back and told me that he'd been very rude to her and had, in fact, hung up on her. She wanted to know if there was anyone above him she could complain to.

Ummm, no. Not really. Governor Schwarzenegger, maybe, or Vice President Cheney. God? I don't think God has much influence on the Boss, if you know what I mean.

I told the woman I was sorry, but there was no one above him.