Close Up - Perspective

I've been dreading this work day for weeks now.

A new guy started. I am supposed to work for him, learn from him and take over from him in a year. I've been warned that he is an A****HOLE, (Capital A intended). He doesn't mind humiliating people in public. He is like a machine -- just give him orders and he obeys. I just love those military analogies.

So I met him, and I can see what people have been talking about. I will not stoop that low. We'll see.

The main topic of the day was that ritual of corporate humiliation and blaming called a "project lessons learned workshop". This lovely event is where the main people in a project and their management get together and identify everything they did wrong, without blaming any particular person of course. Then we all promise never to do it again and move on to the next project.

Repeat all over again.

Sigh, blah, blah, blah. I promise to be better. Blah, blah, blah. I will never repeat the same mistake more than once. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, right.

Although I've been dreading this day, when it came, I was calm, faced it and now it's past. What loomed large wasn't so big after all.

And like the eye of this peacock feather is not what it seemed up close.