You've got a little drool there...

I work in a print shop that is very small for the very large amount of work we produce. There are four of us at the most at any one time. If you've read Gary is 60, you already know about our fast-paced finishing man. We also have Chris, who is our sales dude, and also helps out greatly around the shop with whatever needs doing. Then there the boss of us, who as I've said time and again, is truly the World's Greatest Boss. Even though he laughed wholeheartedly at me when I was the only one in the shop at the time as he walked in and found me trying to hold back an avalanche of 30,000 letters stacked in trays, as I was waiting for my body to sprout an extra arm.

If the boss is out running errands or visiting customers, which he does a lot, I am usually the one answering the phones. There's this one brief statement that many of the people who call say to me and it sort of ruffles my feathers. Now I realize they probably don't mean it this way but...

"Hi, is [your boss] there?"
"No, he's out running errands at the moment. Would you like me to leave a message for him?"
"Well, maybe you can help me..."

Kuj's brain interprets:

"Hi, is [your boss] there?"
"No, he's out running errands at the moment. Would you like me to leave a message for him?"
"Since whom I believe to be the competent person in your office is gone, is there any chance you can summon enough spark in that one brain cell to mop the drool from your chin and listen to me tell you the exact same thing on the phone as I typed in the email I just sent to you? Can you handle that, you knuckle-dragging chimp?"

Eh...Maybe I'm reading too much in to it...

It's really no more frustrating than having my mom and brother drive up to the speaker when I took orders at my first job at McDonald's, back in high school.

"Welcome to the worst job ever, can I take your order?"
"Yes, we'd like two chili cheese dogs and an apple pie, hold the hair."
"MOM!"

You can bet after 90 days at my second job, McD's dropped right off my resume, never to be seen again.

*****

Of course, as I'm typing this post, it occurs to me that if I simply replaced "Would you like me to leave a message for him?" with "Is there anything I can help you with?" that would probably eliminate this whole petty deal. Stupid logic.

Also, Chris was reading over my shoulder and wanted me to add that he's really the company Superman (with small hair<--he once complained about losing his hair, to which I answered, "You're not going bald, you just have...small hair...?").