Canadians

Last Updated on January 2, 2025

Veronica’s boss was a wild card. She did what she wanted at all times & would flip on a dime without notice.

Looking at the days schedule, Veronica’s stomach was already arranging itself in knots. So many meetings & appointments. Which ones would Christine feel like keeping? Sometimes if Veronica found a way to make it seem fun, Christine would actually do most of what was on her schedule. If Veronica put no effort into keeping her boss on track or made anything seem too urgent or mandatory, she would go rogue & get way off track. This executive assistant job felt a lot like wrangling a grown woman toddler.

The morning meetings with the department heads ran late, but not too bad. The meeting with the Canadian Tourism reps was making V. sweat though. They had called to confirm yesterday. They had gotten fresh pedicures to honor the “no shoes office policy.” They would arrive with “bags of Canada’s finest treats.”

20 minutes prior to the meeting, Veronica snuck into Christine’s office with a post it note. It said:

“Canadians arriving in 20 min. Do you want to…

A) have me push you in your chair into the conference room for the meeting?
B ) have a dance party on the roof?
C) ditch & go get margaritas!?

Her boss smiled. She scribbled something & passed the note back.

When Veronica looked at it her palms got sweaty. She had gambled & lost. She’d made her joking options too attractive. Christine had circled, underlined & starred Option C. Some might think she was kidding, but Veronica knew she wasn’t. She felt ill as the text popped up on her phone, “Meet me by the elevator in 5!”

She quickly launched plan B letting the marketing director know that she’d be meeting with the Canadian Reps alone. Christine got called away for “an emergency meeting.” Everyone knew what that actually meant…but humored her.

V. rushed to the elevator. She couldn’t count the number of times it was her job to drink in the middle of the day. Some people would love that. For Veronica it was very stressful because she also was expected to go above & beyond doing whatever her boss said was her job at any time. She had the world’s tiniest tolerance.

She took tiny sips while trying not to seem like she wasn’t drinking her drink. She gulped water & chowed chips in an effort to not get drunk on half a margarita.

Her boss loved ditching meetings and had zero guilt about how far the Canadians had traveled to meet with her or all the effort they went through to prepare. 2 hours later when they arrived back at the office, everyone had maple leaf socks, frosted maple cookies in the shape of a leaf, pens, mugs, and all the Canada shwag you could imagine.

Christine looked at her phone, then at Veronica. “Hey, I need you to go get my lymph drainage massage for me. Tell Teddy I’m sorry I can’t make it, maybe next time.”

V. felt more stress as she realized that she would need to drive, it was only a few blocks, but still!

“Hurry!” Christine said. “Ted hates it when you’re late!” This was her life for now…

#novelpossible mission # 12 complete.