Honestly, I think seeing the world as black and white is a defense mechanism, and a poor and hurtful one at that.

My boss has been acting strangely lately. He's not your average boss – he used to DM D&D games for all the night auditors who were interested…but anyways. He's been dragging me into confrontations with support or management, and threatening to fire other auditors who haven't actually made horrible mistakes – in fact, understandable ones. He has been misunderstanding jokes lately, taking offense to weird things, and debating things that ought to be just left alone. Case in point – someone walks into the hotel and announces "WELCOME TO WALMART!" Then laughs and walks off to his room. Things like this happen. People are goofy at hotels in the late hours. Bossman turns to me and goes "…Did that guy think we were in walmart? Seriously?"

No, bossman. It was just a joke. Quit judging.

Anyways, he comes in tonight to pick up a bag he left here last night when he came up to fix a credit card problem. I was upstairs looking for a problem a guest had reported, and when I came back down he was on the computer that was closing day, fixing the CCs again. I do appreciate the help, but it bothers the crap out of me when he takes the computer I was on and spends ten minutes on it while it's running something I was in the middle of.

The whole time he's here, he's on the phone with his mother, going on and on about how she could defend so-and-so all she wanted but it was just a delusion – the fact of the matter is that "good people don't say things like that." It's emotional abuse, because he wasn't there for him as a kid the guy will never get his respect, old people don't automatically deserve respect, blah blah blah blah BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Meanwhile, I'm behind the desk trying to finish what I had started before he arrived, listening to the whole conversation, listening to him pass ultimate judgment on everyone in his personal life, listening to him explain to his mother why his viewpoint was correct and hers was wrong.

I do NOT want to hear it. I don't. Bossman's idea of the entire world is black and white, right and wrong, all absolutes. It frustrates the crap out of me. He thinks anyone who drinks alcohol is abusive, immature, and leaning on a crutch. Someone to be despised. He thinks the people in his life need his judgment calls, need his input. He thinks he should give it unsolicited, and that doing so BETTERS their lives. He thinks if you mess up once, you're incompetent. Let me illustrate that one:

I've never celebrated a St. Patrick's day before, but I love Irish culture and music, and it all comes out of the woodwork on St. Patty's day. I also love Irish Whiskey. One St. Patrick's day, a friend was coming into town and asked me to hit the streets and the bottle with her. This was when I was working seven nights a week and hadn't asked for any time off. I asked off, and my boss said it'd be fine (he and the trainee were going to be there, so we were more than covered, as usually it's just one person at the desk at night) but that I could come in for the second half of the night if I wanted to make some money. Well, by that point in the night I was still drunk, but in the hotel next door, so I came over to let him know I wasn't going to be able to. I didn't hang around, I didn't make an ass of myself, I didn't do anything but pass on the offer to make more cash.

Since then, any time that friend visits, any time she's brought up in conversation, any time alcohol comes up in conversation, he reminds me of that time I showed up to work drunk. Seriously. He does not drop things – he holds grudges. Hard.

And the world isn't like that.

Don't touch my computer when I'm working on it. Don't judge people who have made mistakes. You're no fucking saint yourself. Don't take it personally when someone sees things differently from you. Don't make me listen to you and your mother's horrifyingly long conversation in which you insult her left and right and fragrantly demonstrate your inability to empathize. And don't touch my computer when I'm working on it.

Also, don't touch my computer when I'm working on it.