I’m sitting here toiling away, and I emailed a friend. While emailing, I realized how much I hate the endless minuet of office bullshit and politics.

On the agenda for today is a little team meeting with our new Chief Administrator. I, and just about every other administrator in the room, have more experience than this woman. The office gossip in the circles affected are pretty much focused on why was she hired, what will she do and how can we avoid her like the plague of locusts (at best) she represents. She’s a particular kind of fun stupid (and by “fun” I mean excruciating pain). Unflappable and uber-confident while sallying forth into the realm of un-fucking-believably stupid. Drooling on yourself eating with a spoon stupid. So stupid you don’t even realize that what you just say has no bearing in the world that you are alledgedly managing. The confidence is amazing, though. I once saw her give a presentation on how faculty are appointed to the department (you know, professors and stuff and how they get their titles). There are a wide variety of people who can become faculty, some are physicians who exclusively work in the clinic, others are laboratory scientists, who have never seen a patient but know a lot about animals, some straddle both worlds, and other themes and variations. So this chick, uber-admin is talking about how it’s supposed to work, and everything she says is about what physicians do and their credentialling and patient loads and what not. A hand raises in the crowd — “Ahh, what about Ph.D.s?”

The quick, confident, self-assured, unflapped answer, “We don’t have any in the department.”

BUZZ, wrong answer, but I guess I applaud your moxie.

Also on the agenda for today is interviewing a job candidate who had the following phrase as a bullet item in her “Profile” –

“Bottom line conscious with attention to detail and deadlines”

Where do I begin?