Heidi

    Ever see those ads for Career Builder.com?  There’s a little kid dressed in a coat and tie sitting in the back of a limo.  The tag line reads, “Is your boss younger than you?”  Uh-huh.  At least that was the case a few years ago.  I was a team leader, and my supervisor was a 25-year old, pasty white girl with light black hair, pig tails, nice tomatoes and a tramp stamp.  Sort of a slightly goth Pippi Longstocking. 

    For a week or two, before I decided she was kind of too young, too grungy and too uninterested, I was  a little sweet on her.  We both liked to write and she had a good sense of humor.  At this particular job, it is exceedingly easy to be funny.  I mean it is about as easy as falling off the rolls of the employed.  One day I was really riffing with a lady on my team, really in the zone.  Heidi had to collar me a few times. 

    The next day I felt bad about it, and went to talk to her. 

    “Are we cool?” I probed.  “I mean… not as in hip.  You know,  Are we square?” 

    You bet we are.  Heidi looked up at me through--maybe above on the right side--her crooked plastic frames.  Heidi was into all things superhero, especially batman, and she often wore batman-themed apparel and accessories. 

     One day a woman on my team asked me if I knew where Heidi was.  “Oh, probably off playing with her bat signal," I answered.  Who knows.  Maybe she was getting high.

    Heidi was hyperactive.  When she typed on the computer it looked and sounded as if she were trying to save the villagers in a movie.  She spoke so fast that sometimes our team couldn’t quite make out what she was saying.  After a while, she realized she really needed to slow it down.

 

    So when the time came for her to record a training video for our team, she made a major effort to adjust her tempo.  She really overcompensated.   So much so that in the finished product, she enunciated every syllable, every sound.  That smooth deliberateness, combined with the dynamics of the recording equipment resulted in what sounded exactly like a late night ad for phone sex. 

    She knew it, too.  I ribbed her, mimicking her sultry tone:  “If you have any questions or desires at all,  just ask.  Feel free  to use any of the materials I’ve provided  to  get yourself  up to speed.  I’ll be sure  to bring this project  to a full and  satisfying conclusion.” 

    She appeared to be giving me some sort of signal via  hand gesture.