I did something underhanded today, and I'm properly ashamed. It's a game I don't like to play, manipulating the people I work with, but I wanted to make a point. I'm not sure it was worth it. I doubt that it had any effect anyway.

The Boss has been after me for cost reports on a couple of jobs we've started within the last month. He's faxed me notes, and he mentioned it again on the phone this morning. He knows that I've been working extra hours to get caught up. (He doesn't know, because he won't pay attention until the last minute, that I'm planning on taking a few more days off next month.)

Then this morning I got a phone call from our insurance agent's secretary. We're trying to switch to a cheaper health carrier, and the agent sent me applications for the employees to fill out. He told me that they had to qualify medically before we could apply to the new company. This process started in March.

This shouldn't have been so difficult, since there are only three of us on the insurance — the Boss, his wayward son and I. I had to mail them their copies and tell them exactly which parts to fill out and what to say and where to sign and where not to sign. Then I had to send them back a second time to get them to redo the parts they missed, and to initial the places where I had to cross out their signatures because they weren't supposed to sign there. So for two extra months we've been paying more than we had to for insurance.

Just before I left for Colorado, the agent's secretary faxed a message that she needed all sorts of other information, including a company application and a deposit check. This was already going much further much faster than I thought, but I didn't have time to deal with it then. This morning she called again, looking for the application, and I tried to tell her that I wasn't expecting to have to fill one out, and that her boss hadn't mentioned that possibility.

I would be willing to send a check (assuming we had any money), but I thought she should tell me how much. That involved her looking up our file, so she hung up, saying she'd get back to me. Then I looked through the material they'd sent, and there was no company application. So I put the whole mess aside and went on to something else. The Golds know that I have enough to keep me occupied without tossing soggy croutons in my salad.

At about this time, the Boss faxed me another letter he wanted typed. I'm also working on fulfilling the affirmative action requirements on a bid we're supposed to turn in this Friday. And Monday is usually the day I pay company bills.

Want to hear more? I also have to figure out where to borrow money for payroll until we can get paid on some of the work we put in place this month. And I'm way behind on my filing. And the quarter ends this week, which will triple my workload next week. Poor, poor pitiful me.

So when he asked me one more time this morning for his precious cost reports, I told him I'd have them some time in the next few days. Then I did them. It took about an hour and a half, not very long in the vast expanse of time.

And now they're done, and sitting on my desk. Because I didn't fax them to him right away. I'm not exactly waiting for him to ask me again, as that would probably constitute some kind of straw, maybe the last kind, maybe the camel-back-breaking kind.

I just didn't want him to think he could demand something that takes time away from the other things he has me doing, and then get instant results. I wanted him to have to wait a while. He could stand to learn a little humility and patience. It's really for his own good.

Okay, I didn't want him to know how easy it was for me to get them done.

So I'm ashamed of myself. My mini-power play won't have any impact, because he'll be happy to get the cost reports whenever he gets them. And I have a lot of practice at not letting him know when I'm irritated, even though there is some leakage in that area. There's nothing totally airtight about my emotions, in spite of my best efforts. All I've really done is generate a cloud of guilt that'll hang over me until I've moved on to the next crisis.

Thanks to Sari for recommending Pepe's Mexican Restaurant here in Santa Rosa (on the corner of Kenmore and Kenmore). That's where Mom and Suzanne and I had lunch today. It's a busy little place at that time of day, but we were able to find a table out on the patio. The food was great (Urp. Excuse me.) It was a nice break on a typically turbulent Monday.

The perfect place to take these shots would be in the middle of Sebastopol Road, but I couldn't make the cars stop whizzing by, no matter how hard I closed my eyes and wished.