It was too early in the morning as the phone rang and my grandmother picked it up and walked up the stairs (even though she doesn’t live with me). I was sleeping with my wife. My grandmother had a concerned look on her face like the telephone call was important, and told me it was my boss’s first name. Of course, I didn’t put two-and-two together since CEO never calls me. Never. So my mind flashbacked to my childhood, where I had a playmate by the same first name.
I answered: it was CEO on his cell phone, so he sounded like a radio caller. And he was angry. And it was before the sun had risen.
“Bart Barton called. He said the test was wrong.”
I remained patient and silent. Let him talk, I know I followed the directions. CEO continued:
“First, you indexed it wrong. Okay? It’s indexed wrong- the whole thing.”
“The whole thing?” I asked in feint disbelief.
“Yeah, and second..secondly, wait lemme check my notes here. Yeah, why did you index the page counter? Captain Software II is here and he said we didn’t have to index the page numbers.”
Okay, NOW I was angry because Cap. Soft. (CSII) is a JERK and doesn’t know ANYTHING about this test. NOTHING. ZILCH. NADA. ZERO.
CEO: “You’d better come down here and redo it. Bart is in California so we have a 3 hour head start; he needs it redone today.”
I asked: “Okay, where are you?”
CEO: “Downstairs. Outside of the window.”
My wife was stirring, so I quietly walked down the stairs, and my house got a lot bigger and more expensive [since CEO is a status monger]. CSII was on my couch with a laptop and paperwork…he looked righteously indignant that I indexed it wrong.
The sun was up. I looked outside of the window and saw CEO on a golf cart with filthy super-rich older men and women. My first reaction: since when is there a golf course to the right of my house? Since when did all of these rich people move in? They really looked like the type of people Bruce Wayne hangs out with. CEO was flirting with a 60-year old woman. He fit right in.
When I let him in through my [conjured up] mansion doors, he and CSII proceeded to accuse and prosecute me, while I maintained my innocence by stepping through the facts. But then I lost my cool when CSII was so ignorant and cocksure. We almost came to blows, and CEO didn’t stop us. CS II’s face was so red- I had finally gotten him to fight back in front of the boss. He claimed he could wipe me out with one punch…I said come on, followed by a bunch of cuss words. Yeah, my hatred was boiling over, and so was his. it was loud. It was ugly.
Getting past the absurdity of the accusations, he tried to stop me from asking him in front of CEO: “Why can’t you just eliminate the page count field in the SQL database? Why can’t you just edit the data instead of me redoing the whole thing?”
He interrupted me three times after I began “What can’t-”. Before the fourth time I punched him.
Anyway, after things settled down, it was now 8:35AM and I told CEO I needed to take a shower before work. He said OK. My wife had been in another bathroom taking a long shower when all of this was happening, and now it was real late and I wasn’t ready for work thanks to CEO. In my mind I said, “Watch me get scolded for being late by CEO- because he’s going to FORGET he cause me to be late.”
When I went into the bathroom and put on the shower, the water wasn’t going down the drain, and the water level was up around my thighs. My wife knocked on the door and asked, “Hon, are you STILL in the shower?” I was embarrassed. “I just came in.” I looked atthe morning from the bathroom window and it looked like a “late morning”–late as in the sun was too high for me to see it since I spent most of my life in school or working during this time on weekdays.
Eventually the scene switched to Tamarac, at my grandmother’s condo. The cast was the same, though. CEO was the boss, he totally took over the house. I defered leadership to him. CEO was trying to get Bart on the phone. For some reason the time was 4:30AM, and dark. He was going through Bart’s receptionist, to tell Bart the good news: the project would be completed on time. While he was getting Bart, I had to urinate. I went into the bathroom and saw floaters. I urinated, and hoped Bart wouldn’t get on. I heard CEO calling my name and CSII’s. I couldn’t finish in time, and missed the meeting. CSII assured CEO that the project would make it thanks to his programming script.
Finally at the end of the dream, when CEO was calm, I told him that I thought CSII should have realized this at the beginning. He nodded slowly and deliberately and whispered, “I know…I know.”
