It comes back… or at least it can.

I've been with my partner going on three decades. Every so often, but never often enough because that's not the Universe we live in, the felted-dryer-lint pressure of the grinding world recedes and I realize: "Holy shit, this person gets me!"

That first panel carries a subtle-but-telling observation; I actually remember where I was when I first slapped plastic on the table while the people who were the friends of my youth counted out their cash. I didn't know the idiom of the crab bucket then, but as I rationalize my memory into a coherent narrative, that was the moment where I looked back from the lip of the bucket, and then slipped away.

I spent a lot of years working shitty jobs under shitty managers, and I wrote down how I was going to be instead as a way of coping with their bullshit. This particular kind of shitty manager here was the worst; at least with outright abusive managers I didn't have to act out emotions or social rituals I barely understand.

Anyway, eventually I did start getting promoted, and I am always very upfront with my employees: I care about your welfare, and that includes you emotional well-being, and in order to be effective and protect you and help your career I cannot be your friend. I am an ally, a resource, a guide… and as long as I'm stuck playing the role of boss in the bullshit hierarchical system we've decided is "work", we will never go drinking together. Also, during standard work hours we work hard, sorry not sorry. To keep things fair, during non-work hours I don't call or text or bother you unless there's actually lives and/or limbs on the line (in my work that stuff happens, so I did call or text out of hours occasionally).

When this COVID-19 bullshit hit I broke my rule a little and texted all of my current reports and those of my former employees whose contact info I retained, checking up on them, making sure they had the stuff they needed to hunker down for awhile. I know it's paternalistic AF, but if that's the way we are gonna run this shitshow, the least I can do is be good at my part. A few of my past employees responded to tell me I was the best boss they ever had, or ask me to come back to take over and run where they are now. I'm a grown-ass man who works for the military, my emotional range mostly runs between "rage" and "kinda peeved", and yeah… I teared up a little.

Don't get me wrong. The bar is low, and I know it. But, whatever I may have failed to achieve in life, at least I'm not that asshole, pretending we're cool while holding a knife to a person's livelihood.