The dark side

I know some of you think my job is just frolicing outside with cute baby animals. Well that's not true. About half my time is doing office work and going to meetings. That means I have a lot of multi-tasking. I have several supervisors who each think their projects should be my #1 priority. Then throw in their supervisors who periodically come to me with an urgent project. They all can't be #1 so that's fun. Then there's those clients that are a psychologist's dream, which I have to manage as well.

There's one client who is above and beyond all others. Let's call him Dom. Dom is notorious not only in my office but throughout the industry. The word lunatic is often used to describe him and it seems like everyone has a jaw dropping story/incident about him. Dom likes to curse and scream up a storm (so much so it's comical because you are thinking "this can't be real" or "he's going to stroke out or have a heart attack"), answer calls during meetings and curse the caller out, do the blackberry thing during meetings, hang up on you whenever things are not going his way, not pay any attention at meetings but afterwards yell at you because he's all knowledgeable, call all women "dear", "honey" or "sweetie", call people pudgy to their face, not remember your name, and of course not pay us. I am fully convinced that he has ADD and is a gemini. Oh and Dom likes to look everyone up and down..men and women. Weird. He's fired our company more than once but he always comes back. But there's his other side. Dom can be very very charming when he wants to be. I'm pretty sure Dom thinks he's the second coming of George Clooney...looks and charm. That and he can have any woman.

I had a meeting last week with supervisor, Dom, and his two minions. I unfortunately had to lead the meeting since I was the most knowledgeable about the issues and the site. I also had to sit next to Dom since no one wanted to sit there. Sigh...but I'm not one to back down. I also thought that I could make sure he pays attention. Things started well and then Dom randomly goes "You have such a flat stomach. Everyone look at her stomach." Mind you I am not wearing a painted on spandex half shirt. It's a normal fitted t-shirt. And I most certainly do not have abs of steel. More like a one-pack. I brush him off by saying that next time I'll be sure and wear those sympathy pregnancy bellies so as to not distract him. Later he goes "You should marry some rich guy so you wouldn't have to work." and then he asks one of the two forbidden questions "How old are you?" I make him guess and he's says 24 (I'm not even in the 20's range so I don't know if that's a compliment or insult). He then wants to know where I live (I evade but he now knows I live like in the next town over) and if I like to hike on my downtime (duh yes - which elicits a frowny face from Dom). He says I should wear heels and he doesn't like my flat mod shoes. The real meeting finally ends with only one screaming and cursing side phone call. Then Dom wants to know what music I listen to. He loves Nickelback. I do not share his opinion. He has his minion pull out their iphone and play some mysogyinist rap song that he was repeatedly quoting...something about double d's. I can't remember what it was since I was so fixated on the iphone and making the screen rotate. He says I should stop by and I got the feeling he was trying to set me up with someone..who I'm sure is equally as fabulous as him. Cuz y'know we have so much him common. Did I mention that he's obsessed with all things related to money...drives a fancy car, lives in a castle sized house, has a personal buyer at said designer clothing stores, etc.? Yeah. He then says he likes my bag. I just smiled and said that it was from Target.

At the end of this week is some magical date for Dom. He's been waiting for this day before he takes another step in this one big project. I swear he's been to an astrologist since it was so random. This date will mean that I will be subject to more meetings and lovely phone calls. So I hope all of you send me good vibes at the end of this week. I'll need some restraint not to strangle Dom. Serenity now.