It's been one of those Longest Day Ever kind of days. I wish it was over.

The week has been--eventful.

Our Problem Bowery Boy, the MadBoy from last week, has been up to more of his tricks. After getting essentially everything he asked for (excepting only the power to direct other people's marketing dollars to his own pocket), and being asked to follow only one rule in return--to leave the account where it was, so that we could make sure his target ad area didn't infringe on anyone else's assigned territory.

Well, you can see what's coming, right? He took everything we gave him and then today he broke the one rule.

I passed notification to my own personal ChaosManager, Vela. She passed it to Jason. And, over my written objections, Vela says they intend to "address" the matter during a conference call this Friday.

Since the topic of the call is something completely different and it's being held with the MadBoy and a group of his peers, I feel that this is counterproductive. I mean, is there any good result likely to come of forcing him to take a public stand? No, there is not. We would be more likely to win our point if we addressed the problem with MadBoy privately, that's what I think.

I don't run this place, though, so it's not my decision.

Another of our wanna-be problem children called earlier this week, working up a head of steam over something he wanted. Since what he wanted was easy and all he had to do was to ask to get it, he was sort of left standing there with mad all over his face, looking stupid.

Jason's idea for reporting for the coming year involves a mile-long spreadsheet full of formulas that compare and contrast things we can affect with things we can't, in an attempt to see if we're reaching impossible goals.

Fortunately for me, my only involvement was running a report out of the Webstrainer program. Someone else has to die of boredom, doing the data entry.

Also? Last week Jason handed Vela the same famous line he gave Gidget last spring. "I don't know if you're the right person for this job."

He doesn't care for the quality of her work? How surprising. I mean, all she did was take on the 40-hour a week job of one employee this summer, then add the 60-hour a week job of another employee around the first of December. All the while trying to take care of her own 60-hour a week job. How can it be that he's finding that the quality of work put out by this department is suffering?

Dork.

It's tough. I mean, I sort of like Jason, you know? Personally, I mean. He has a nice, dry sense of humor. Very understated. But from a business perspective? Not so much. And if he gets rid of Vela? I am so out of here, bills to pay or not. It boggles the mind to think of what kind of person he'd hire--or how much pain they're going to be in, trying to run a six-person department with themselves and 1-1/2 other person and without Vela's three years of experience in the place.

I'll bet he hires a man, too. Our misogynistic Argonuts come to heel like little puppies when it's a man's voice on the phone.

15 more minutes. Will I be able to take it? (It still astonishes me how quickly this went from being a dream job to a nightmare.)