So my wife’s fourteen-wanna-be-eighteen-year-old cousin came to visit this past week from Florida. As an older guy who is not his own father, he does idolize me a tad, largely because I can play basketball with him. I have known him since he was three or four, having joined my wife’s family around that time, so I’ve watched him grow in sporadic fits, only seeing him once or twice a year. And, of course, I remember my own growth when I was a wee lad up until his current age, when I, too, was a know-it-all, pubescent, attention-seeking male.

Oh, the horror.

So he has come to visit every year, but somehow, this was the year when it all changed.
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So the truth has emerged (and I am hoping that no one from my office actually reads this blog).

Last week while we moved, I missed a few days worth of emails, and when I emerged from beneath the pile of boxes, I had a couple hundred messages waiting for me, including a few from anxious clients, to whom I replied quickly and apologetically. I also had one from a particularly prickly colleague who was lashing out at me for not replying to one specific client sooner (and he had cc’ed about half the company, including all of our senior management). I had a combative phone call with him and he apologized, with no real damage done.

I spoke to the client and all has been smoothed over.

But then, I had a subsequent conversation with another colleague who mentioned something interesting: the “Big Boss” had been recently questioning the behavior of certain parents in our group, specifically why we were out, leaving early, or coming in late. Interesting.
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