My memory is shit.

But I will never forget the worst working experience I've ever had.

I had this boss, right? He looked like David Hasselhoff (ewwww!), had all the brains of a bag of ferrets, all the human kindness and grace of Yersina Pestis, and the humility of Caligula.

This guy was in his 50's, but had had plastic surgery to make him look younger. His ego required that he stay in decent shape, so I will give him credit for working out and staying relatively healthy and avoid mid-life flab, but you could see the terror of aging pretty clearly through the filmy-thin layer of health-consciousness. He would refuse to wear his glasses, because that would have added a year or two onto his looks, and he just couldn't have that. So I would have to take all of his e-mails (which he refused to learn how to use), copy and paste them into a Word document, and blow up to 16 point BOLD, so that he could read them without corrective eyewear.

He routinely dated women in their early 20's, in itself not a crime, nor something that would even offend me, had he not been cynical enough to do it just because he could, knowing that they were really in it for professional advancement and exposure in the field and not from any great feeling of actual attaction and warmth. Am I naive? I guess that's the way of the world, but it does leave a nasty taste in the mouth.

One time, he had a party at his house, at department expense, even after the money had run out and even though an aunt of mine had died and I was contemplating going to Maine that night for the funeral the next day, or at least just going home to make some calls to family and feel sad for a bit, I had to go to this party, because HIMSELF WASN'T GOING TO BE HOME FOR THE BOOZE DELIVERY, EVEN THOUGH I'D TOLD HIM EVERY DAY FOR A WEEK THAT THE BOOZE WOULD BE DELIVERED BETWEEN 5 AND 6PM. And then, when I got there, HE WAS FUCKING THERE, EVEN THOUGH HE SAID HE HAD A MEETING AT HIS OTHER OFFICE AT THAT TIME.

Oh, and then, I had to go out and buy toilet paper in the middle of the party. This grown-up man had run out of fucking toilet paper and I had to go buy it.**

But all this wouldn't cause me to hate the man so much as pity him.

No, it was the sense of entitlement that he oozed that made me hate him.

Oh, and the house full of "arty" photograhs of naked nubiles. That was pretty gross, too.



**My friends will tell you this is one of my biggest pet peeves. If you have people coming to your house to drink, make sure you have fucking bog paper, you asshole.