Yes, I uttered those completely cliche words today, simply out of reflex. It was either that or flounder around in the manner of an epileptic goldfish who jumped out of his bowl while I try to find some polite-yet-feasible excuse to go hide back in my cubicle. You see, I was on my way out of my office area, walking into the hallway when wham, I walk right smack-dab into my old boss. There is some very unpleasant history between my ex-boss and myself, a history most of my close friends already know. I'll summarize it here for the LJ crowd as "I was the catalyst for my company 'asking' him to resign." So you can see, gentle reader, why he and I might have some tension between us if we ever met face to face again. Meanwhile, after I mumbled those seven words of platitude my mind was racing around like a greyhound after getting a snootful of coke, trying to find something neutral yet polite to say to him in an effort to remain human to the man I wanted for months to throttle with my bare hands.

It was not an easy thing to do.

So here we were, face to face, talking like two reasonable men while my mind tried to chew off its own proverbial leg so that it could escape from this conversation. Actually, I think at that point my mind wanted to deny all of reality, the hell with just escaping from that conversation. But it's healthy to face you fears. I made myself stay put and talk smalltalk with him, moving to shop talk and then on to other things. The part that struck me was when my former manager said, quite out of the thin air, "Well, you should call me sometime, we'll get together. There's no hard feelings. In fact, that was the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm making more money and having a better time in my new job than I ever was here." That made me pause for a moment, because it was so completely unexpected. He can be two-faced, he can be shifty, but usually once you earn his dislike you don't get a golden nugget like that in your conversations with him. I suppose I could by cynical (Could be? HAH!) and say that he only says those things because he's now one of our vendors and he has to be nice and kiss ass to all of my company's employees. But I don't think, in this case, that was what was motivating him. I think he honestly meant what he said. If he did, I applaud him. Not just because he turned an unfortunate twist of fate into an opportunity, but because he is obviously a better man than I: I still carry a grudge about some of the things that went on when I was working for him. You'll recall the rant I did about grudges a little while ago, and he definately rated a longstanding grudge, and a healthy dose of fear on my part as well.

I'm going to cut this post short because I have to get back to work here in the apartment, and finish cleaning up, but this has given me a lot to think about. I believe I'll be coming back to this incident in a later journal. The pack gathering of Jen, Aureth and Roho is still on and will be occuring Friday evening. Beer, brats, burgers and movies. I don't know how much cooking I'm up to doing, or if I'm really even up to having all this company, but it'll be nice to have all of the Pack gathered in one place again.

Surrender yourself to tock.

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