The devil drives Audi

I found myself in an uncomfortable position this week. My boss wanted to take a coworker and myself on a field trip to another organization. On the surface, at least, her intentions may have seemed magnanimous. However, her motivations are never that clear.

Let me go on record as saying that I think my boss, lets call her "J", is very bright. She cultivates loads of contacts in our field and is highly respected by those outside our organization. She even engenders a certain level of respect within our organization. Unfortunately, J is a VERY unpredictable personality. Ultimately, she is more interested in bolstering her own image than doing what is right for the end user or the organization at large. Many people are afraid of her or simply dislike dealing with her. I have found her delussional, paranoid, and easily riled.

Over the last several weeks, I have been tertiarily promoting a project that she has come out against and has tried to fight in subtle ways (after spending months trying to keep it from coming to fruition at all). There are a lot of political machinations going on surrounding her department and her position in our organization. While she is highly valued for past contributions and her standing in the field, it is finally being clearly recognized that she does not work and play well with others, and that she cannot be left as manager of our department.

My personal discomfort level rose to new heights when she invited us on this field trip. I do not trust her and I really don't want to spend any time with her. Yesterday, when the trip was initially scheduled, my coworker would have made the trip over to the other organization with us, but would have headed off on her own afterwards. This would have left me alone in the car with J for the 40 minute trip back to our office. I could not bear this thought, so much so, that I made myself physically ill with stress.

The good news, I guess, was that the trip was postponed until today. My coworker would be making both legs of the trip with us then. So, while my stomach rebeled a bit, I successfully endured the trip. We were out of the office together for about three hours.

During the trip, we made lots of small talk around personal topics. Unfortunately, she managed to bring up the current contenuous project while we were at the other site. Apparently, some of the disputed software is in use there and has not had an unblemished incumbency. This clearly interested her as she stored information for use in her arsenal against the software that my fellows have been trying to bring into our organization (to replace another more egregiously broken package, which she introduced and has a vested interest in maintaining for purely egocentric reasons).

There is no denouement to this story. I survived. She is still my boss. The struggle will continue.

"Gird your loins"