11:52 a.m. Well, yet another commute to Boulder safely under my belt. One of those inexplicable highway slowdowns delayed me for 15 minutes this morning. You know the kind I mean--traffic slows and then stops and inches forward at a crawl and then starts moving freely again and no one can figure out what the cause was.

Arriving this morning I discovered two things:

(1) The last shelving unit that Bernie was supposed to bring in last Thursday so that we could finish unpacking boxes is not here. He's bitching about the boxes still sitting around but I don't know what he expects me to do about it.

(2) The network is not set up and the T1 is not hooked up. In spite of me telling him when we spoke at 11:20 yesterday to call the man and confirm he would be here at 1:00 yesterday, Bernie did not call him.

He was in a snit because he wanted me to call. I pointed out that he was the one in the office. I didn't have the number, which was written down on the pad next to my computer, and it was up to him to schedule when he wanted someone to come in. All of that just made him more irritated. I? Am not a secretary.

The idea of me calling Boulder to ask some guy when he was available and then hanging up to call Bernie and give him the time just so he could tell me that wasn't convenient and to make it 30 minutes later and then hanging up and calling the guy back and making it 30 minutes later only to have Bernie call me again five minutes after that and tell me to call the guy again and ask him to call Bernie and confirm when he was headed over? Does not amuse me.

Bernie eventually called the dispatcher at 1:00 and by the time she tracked the man down, he didn't show up until 4:30. Bernie seemed to want points because he was here until 7:30 last night but from where I sit, it's his company. If anyone should be here until 7:30, it's the guy who owns the place, makes the most money, and brags that it's fifteen minutes from where he lives.

I suspect he did what he always does--called five companies and then signed with the cheapest one. You get what you pay for.

(1:17 p.m. - Just overheard Bernie talking to the new network free-lancer. Bernie was actually here until 6:45 last night. Why does he lie about stupid things?)

Later....

So, we had another little trauma about paying me. He's still determined that he's not going to pay me full-time between now and the time I leave because from his perspective, I'm not working full-time and if I am working full-time, I'm not doing things he wants to pay me to do, so why should he pay me?

So he wants to not pay me for this Friday because he doesn't see I have work I can do from home and he wants to pay me hourly for the hours I'm actually in the office next week unless I agree to be here for five days from 8:30 - 5:00 each day, in which case he'll pay me full-time, and no more working from home because while he had to concede that the work I was doing needed to be done, it's not work he wanted to pay anyone to do.

And, oh, by the way, how about I schedule to come in for a full day on Saturday, two weeks after my last day, and do a follow-up training (because he's just sure that I care as much as he does about the future of this company?) and while we're discussing training why doesn't he hire two people and I can train them both next week and he'll just keep the one that works out best at the end of the week.

An hour later I put the finishing touches to an email that essentially said that since he felt it was unfair to have to keep paying someone who wasn't going to be working for him any more in the future, I was happy to help him take care of the problem by leaving. Today.

Then I hit send and went about my work, which included interviewing a potential replacement while Bernie ran some errands.

Sigh. The thing about being passive-aggressive is that it's difficult (at least for me) to stay aggressive, or mad. I'm really more passive-snippy-passive. By the time he got back to the office, I'd calmed down (having vented all of my anger into the email) and before he could read it, I told him I'd sent it.

Then we had a nice little conversation. Much was discussed, but the bottom line is that I will fulfill my commitment to work until 3/23 and he will pass no remarks about how sad it is that he has to actually pay me.

Also he apologized and admitted that his wife has been ragging on him for two months about what a jackass he's being at home and he knows he's been wrong. He also admitted that he's been taking all of his frustrations out on me because I'm the only person around. And he's sorry.