by Mumpy 

I think that there might just possibly be a teensy weensy bit of light at the end of the technical writing tunnel for me. My boss got fired last week. If I was a nice, warm, generous, fuzzy, kind of person, I would have told him how sorry I was – but being somewhat of a selfish bitch, I couldn’t even bring myself to say goodbye.

Truth be told, he always gave me excellent evaluations and told me time and again that I was one of the best technical writers that he had ever worked with – but it was never enough for me. I shall sum it up with one scenario. I am part of the PM team; every day this boss would come over to our corner and ask the other PMs to go to lunch. He never once, in 16 months, asked me to join them.

So now we have a new boss. I LIKE my new boss. I think he has potential for being my friend. I use the word “friend” in a loose sense here to denote not so much someone that you chat to on the phone about unexplained leakage from your private parts, but someone who might actually see that I have a point and pave the way for things to change in my company.

I’m not saying that I have it that badly coz I don’t. Nobody chains me to my desk and sticks hot skewers up my nose. I have unlimited access to the toilet. I get a whoppingly good salary. People at work generally seem happy to see me, or at least don’t stop talking and look pointedly at the ground every time I walk into the kitchen. My work neighbors allow me to play the Alternative Women station on Got radio very loudly. Every day somebody has a birthday or a baby or a something or other and brings yummy cakes. It’s not a bad way to spend 9 hours a day.

But there is only person in my company who cares about documentation – in terms of procedure and management and profile – and that person is your tired and bald mumpy. And I want someone else - someone on a managerial level – to fight the good fight together with me. And I think my new boss might just be that guy.

So if everybody crosses their fingers, toes and other body parts of their choice, I might suddenly and startlingly actually become, gasp dare I say it, happy at work and start a weekly poetry column instead