Too Happy

This is a cautionary tale, so pay extremely close attention.

Several years ago I worked for a start up company as an Executive Assistant to the CEO. The VP of Engineering was one of the founders of the company and was, in my humble and accurate opinion, an egotistical vengeful jerk that ruined the company out of spite. I kissed my stock options goodbye because of him.

He also seemed to have a soft spot for the receptionist who worked for another company in our building. I found this out after having my sister come in for an interview with him for a job as his admin. He was apprised of the interview. Knew the time she would be there. Saw her come in, and promptly left for lunch without ever shaking her hand or acknowledging that she was sitting there waiting to speak with him. Odd and rude don’t you think? Two very apt words to describe him. Odd and rude.

Unbeknownst to our HR department, Mr. VP had already hired someone to be his admin and chose not to divulge this information to anyone, including the person who set up the interview with my sister. Yes, you guessed it. He had hired the receptionist from the other company.

Apparently, he felt sorry for the woman, primarily because of her single mother status and sad story of limited funds to raise her son. I guess Mr. VP had some white-knight-syndrome going for himself and thought to save her from a life of poverty and boredom as a receptionist. Interestingly enough, she always had enough money to go out to the hot spots at night with one of our single girls.

Disregard the fact that the girl couldn’t type and had never been anyone’s secretary, let alone a VP with a group of engineers. But she could and did clean up after the engineers like a good mommy, and she served them food artfully displayed on a plate during her breakfast rounds in the morning and again in the afternoon. They liked that and the frilly apron she donned to serve the food. Oh, maybe I forgot to tell you that she had been a waitress before her receptionist position. HR asked that she refrain from wearing the apron at her desk. She wasn’t pleased about that. It was a display of her core competence.

The CEO asked me to buy her a typing program, which I did. I don’t think she ever opened the box. Mr. VP had business cards printed for her with the title, Administrative Assistant. It seems that people in the company believed that with that particular title, the ability to type was assumed to be one of the skills. Ahhh…the plot thickens.

One day, the girl ran up to my desk in a panic and all ajitter with nerves over the fact that someone had asked her to complete a job, which crazily enough, included typing some information in an Excel chart and a Powerpoint slide. Oh, well, if you can’t type then you certainly don’t know how to use Microsoft Word and if you can’t use Word you most definitely won’t know anything about Excel or Powerpoint. She was one skill level short of incompetent.

I told her to tell the requestor that she didn’t know how to do the job. She looked at me in horror. “I can’t tell them that. They’d think I don’t know how to do it.” My little brain mulled over this statement. “But,” I said with what I thought was reason and patience, “you DON’T know how to do it.” My husband has a saying: Don’t argue with an idiot. I’ll add another one: Don’t use logic on an idiot. Neither work.

After setting her wet glass of soda down on top of the papers on my desk so that she could use two hands to plead her insane case to me, she realized she had just sat the glass on top of the important papers I was working on. She knew this, smartly enough, because there was a wet ring of moisture soaking its way to the bottom of the stack. She grabbed the glass, which now had papers stuck to it, and spilled brown fizzy liquid over my desk in her haste to rectify her error. Stupid is as stupid does, Forrest Gump said.

“I’ll just leave this work with you and let you finish it for me. You’re SO good, I know you could get this done so much faster than I could,” she proclaimed, ready to make a hasty retreat back to the safety of her apron and the kitchen.

Now you might think that faced with a wet desk, statements that made no sense to a sensible gal such as me, and a request cloaked with juvenile accolades that I might have sat there with brain freeze unable to think of an appropriate response. However, before her behind could make it all the way out of the chair, I requested that she sit down. I gave her the choice of having me show her how to do the work, or telling the requestor she didn’t know how to do the work, but in any case, I wasn’t doing her work for her. Sly stupidity might work on Mr. VP, but it doesn’t cut ice in my world.

Given that this was only one of many…many stories, you can imagine that the admin staff (okay, me and the sales admin) was a tad unhinged with the antics of this fool. She was one of those perky people who blither on in front of you about how great they think you are and how much they want to learn from you and what suggestions do you have for me…and then they go and do the exact opposite of what you just advised them to do, because they actually never intended to do anything you recommended since they had their own agenda and plan in mind all along. Sort of like a delinquent teenager trying to con their way into using your car even though they don’t have a driver’s license or experience driving a stick shift.

So, our CEO thought she would outwit Mr. VP by bringing in a psychologist to give us a psychology test. One of those nouveau work things that show a person’s shortcoming and strengths. We knew how hers would come out, and could take said paper and wave it under the nose of Mr. VP at which time we could suggest moving her to another job. Probably in another company. The test, of course, was completely optional. Take it or not. Naturally I took it. I’m very well grounded and know myself right down to every good and bad trait. I had nothing to fear. So sayeth the ego of a fool who thinks a psychologist is just another average Joe.

I took the test, which turned out had a lot of questions about games. I hate board games as I’m not very patient with the rules and strategy of the play. Candyland is about my limit. I like Candyland. I don’t like Monopoly. It takes too long and I get bored fairly easily and want to move on to something more interesting. Like writing.

And I’m not very good at sports, and have never had a driving need to play sports, but do love to watch a good athlete. I’ve dabbled in jumping horses and NATRC (cross country competitive trail riding), but that was for fun and not serious competition. Don’t get me wrong, I like to win as much as the next person, but board games, volleyball and ping pong don’t get my bloodlust thumping all that much.

I knew I was in trouble…big trouble when I met the psychologist. We were talking a bit before he went over the test with me. I was relaxed and not worried at all about anything. My first mistake. But why should I worry? I’m a sane, normal, average woman. No great revelations were forthcoming. Apparently, that's what all lunatics say on the way to the mental hospital.

As I recall, I was telling him a story about my morning and happened to mention that I think in pictures. I see things as stories. You probably figured that out already. He looked up at me with an intellectual squint of pensive educated concern and said, “You’ll have to tell me about that sometime.” A shiver of worry skittered down my back. I was pretty sure he didn’t see this as a creative or positive trait to have. Maybe something a lab should study while I was locked safely behind bars. That sort of look.

You’ll be interested to know that the test showed that I am the sort of person who likes to be at the top of the triangle with no care or concern for those beneath me and only demands the complete allegiance of the peons down below. I’m paraphrasing here, but that was the gist of it. He found that odd, as he didn’t really see me that way, but oh well, his Test (I'm capitalizing it as he was very fond of his Test) was not wrong. No? I argued. Carefully. You have to be very careful with psychologists who already see you as a strange person with egomaniac traits. He said that I obviously didn’t understand myself, but if I had a good friend or family member (which I think he probably doubted that I had either) to talk with about the test, they could give me a true and accurate picture which would, in fact, coincide with his assessment. Because his Test wasn’t wrong.

There was that look again. I’m the bug and he’s the lab technician and I don’t even know I’m a bug. I started to get a bit creeped out. I know for sure I’m not a bug, and I don’t care what his idiot test (lower case...nee ner nee ner) says. I was in the uncomfortable position of trying to convince the wacho psychologist that I’m sane and his test is totally bogus. Yeah, like that works. You poor bug.

Then he said that I was not a competitive person at all to which I responded that indeed I was given the right circumstances (hence my top sales status when I was in a home sales business), but given that his test dealt only with games, which I disliked and sports which I don’t play, it was incorrectly skewed to chess club members or Olympic dynamos. I’m paraphrasing again. He admitted that his test was overly slanted with questions on sports and games, which at some point he would rectify, but it wasn’t wrong. And he was aghast that I didn’t like board games and wondered what on earth I thought was wrong with them, and in particular Monopoly, as anyone thinking there was something not fun about board games couldn’t be completely normal and human. I’m once again paraphrasing, but I think I captured the essence of his concern and disgust with my ilk of bug.

The kicker to his test was that…I hope you’re sitting down with a good stiff drink in your hand…I’m too happy. Too happy. I’ll bet you’ve never known anyone too happy. Now you do. Too happy...as in completely unrealistic about life and pretending the bad stuff doesn’t exist, or if it does, it doesn’t exist for you…la la la. See me floating on this nice cloud?

I wanted to tell him where to put his Too Happy Test, but thought he might write up a very nasty report on me and give it to the CEO where it would magically duplicate itself and get out to the world somehow preventing me from working in an office ever again. Drat, I could have saved myself years of boredom behind the short walls of cubicle life. I'm such a stupid bug.

I told him that he and his test had no idea where I was or had been in life, what I had been through, and how I had coped with it. He had no idea if I was on the other end of a divorce and happy to be happy once again or any other life-altering circumstance that makes you happy to be you today. He said I really should find someone who knew me and who would tell me the truth about my “real” traits. Poor bug.

See what I mean about arguing with an idiot? It's such a waste of time.

The sales admin, a staunch Morman woman, was told that she had “dishonest” traits. She was mortified and shocked that anyone would consider her to be less than honest or truthful. Ahhh, The Test found another bug. I believe this was due to the fact that some of the questions were about covering for your boss under certain circumstances. She, being a loyal bug, answered that she probably would. Oh, what a fool was she.

Oh, the little lady for whom we cleverly, sneakily, took this test? Her boss told her not to take it as it was a waste of time and something he wasn’t going to look at anyway.