January 21st, 2010

my new boss… is awesome

This is the first time since I moved to this coast that I’ve had a boss that I actually respect and admire, and it’s a different experience for me.

My boss gets in before most everyone and is undoubtedly the last to leave. She works weekends, she works from home and she’s run this company for over two decades. She doesn’t ask her staff to do anything she wouldn’t do herself and damn if she isn’t smarter than all of us, with a Master’s and a PhD and did I mention she graduated with those concurrently? At 24? Yeah. She got into business young, then got married, got fired for being pregnant (ha, she showed them) and started running her dad’s company. Now she’s raised four kids, three of whom work for her, and she’s running one of the most successful businesses in the area with a staff of 150 and contracts easily totaling over 15 million a year.

Every day she allows herself four cigarettes… six if it’s a particularly draining day. And you can always tell what kind of a day it is by which cigarettes are missing—she places them strategically on shelves and power boxes on the way out the door. If they’re all gone by 2PM, it’s a bad day; if there’s one still on the apple shelf, it’s a good day.

I find it endearing.