Your government has got a little Captain in it.

Today I was sitting on my desk and I was talking to my boss and my boss’s boss and I had a moment. I looked at my boss, wildly gesticulating with her Starbucks cup in her left hand and a pen in her right. She had one expensively shod foot on the desk next to her. The cuff of her charcoal slacks swinging as she pointed the pen at her own boss with vigor. He stood next to her, leaning against my desk with his ankles crossed. He looked at her with an understanding smile that said “I am as exasperated as you are. I know where you are coming from.” As she slowed down he took a sip from his own Starbucks cup before responding while nodding and shaking his head alternately. I let out a deep sigh and put my Latte down before saying “the X commission has an over trumped sense of self importance. They believe that they have some sort of authority and it is all because the Y City Council is to lazy to do anything but request recommendations from the X Commission and blindly follow them.” The bosses solemnly nodded in agreement.
Then as I went to pick my Starbucks cup up again I thought “who the hell just said that?” Who the f*** gave me a job where the things I say and think and do have real life implications. Hell, not just implications but consequences!
Seriously, I just looked around at my desk and thought “I am so out of my league” and then I had the even scarier realization that that is not true.
You know that commercial for Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum? The one where they show you a woman who is supposed to be your dental hygienist or some guy who is supposed to be your air traffic controller, or a lady who is supposed to have some other generally responsible type job flopping around on the floor in a puddle of perspiration, liquor, total lack of inhibition? Yeah, I am that person.
“John in IT has got it.”
“So does Carol in Legal”
“Even T-town in planning”
“Yup, they all have a little Captain in them”
Actually I can’t stand Captain Morgan’s. We had a run in when I was about 16. Good times.
The point is that I might be a f***-up when I am not at work but so is everyone else. None of us should be here! All of this is way to important for people to deal with. People have issues. People have hormones. People have feelings and prejudices and hangovers and bad days and . . . what I am trying to say is being the government is hard. I used to trust the government to do shit for me but now I know that “the government” is really just a bunch of assholes like me who get drunk on Friday night and spend the tax dollars you pay them buying their dog food that is made out of organic potatoes and duck! Damn dog! Always being allergic to stuff.