Satan Has Met His Match

Life has been pretty hectic lately. Not bad, just busy. I�ve been working down at my client�s office for a month, and loving it. The people are wonderful, the building is great, the commute it a godsend, and let�s not forget, I have an office.

I got a call from Satan on Wednesday saying that he needed me to come back and work with him on a big project for a day, and I began to cry. Seriously. There�s something wrong when you get choked up because you have to go to work, but I didn�t want to leave my client. Having a month away from Satan and his cronies gave me some perspective. In order to continue working for him, I�d convinced myself that every office has a Satan who screams openly at employees and has no respect for anyone with less money than he has. I�d convinced myself that no matter what job I were to go looking for, I�d have to deal with an incompetent 50 year old woman with no social or technical skills who reached a position of authority by some miracle of god, or Satan as the case may be. For the sake of my sanity, I�d convinced myself that I�d be treated like a worthless lowlife at any company I worked for.

But now I know better. My client is a company where every person is treated with respect and admiration. The secretary is spoken to with exactly the same amount of reverence as the Director, and in many ways they are seen as equals. I�ve been amazed at the difference, and it�s made me absolutely dread the thought of returning to Satan�s company.

Yesterday, one of the top employees in the client�s department I am working in announced her resignation. This is big news, because they are already so short staffed that they are paying my full billing rate, plus another of my co-workers, just to keep their heads above water. Another of the top employees is out on medical leave for an unknown amount of time. The Director told me about her resignation, and I immediately welled up with fear, as I knew there was suddenly a real decision to be made. I want her job. I want it badly. I want the good working hours, I want the commute, I want the respect, I want the low-stress environment. I want the office.

I�ll be giving up a lot if I do this though. I won�t be an actuary, first of all. All the exams, the training, the degree, is pretty much out the window. I�ll be working in a very related field, but it�s not the same. The money won�t be as good� certainly the earnings potential won�t be as good.

Satan is the type of boss who would scream, �So what the fuck am I paying you for, to stand around and be incompetent?� at a secretary who couldn�t complete a project due to unfamiliarity with software. He�d make her cry in the hopes that she would work harder and not bother him anymore. Yesterday at the client�s office, I watched the Director sit with his secretary and problem solve a simple Excel trick that neither of them could figure out. They laughed at how simple it seemed. They eventually grabbed me to help them, and when I sat at the computer and solved their problem in under 15 seconds, the secretary placed her hand on my left shoulder, the Director placed his hand on my right shoulder, and they said, �Thank you� in unison, each with a big sigh of relief. I sat and showed them some tricks and taught them a few simple functions, and they both looked at me as their teacher, their equal, and their friend.

Screw the paycheck, I don�t think there�s enough money to get me to go back to Satan after that. To be treated like a human being, it�s such a simple little trick of recruitment that Satan really ought to consider.