Polly does not associate with the 'chameleon' concept. Photo / iStock
My big boss 'squinged' when I told her over dinner that I joyfully and lustily EMBRACED CHANGE.
Definition of squinge: "To raise one's lower lids in a micro gesture in a manner that suggests the person listening doesn't believe you".
Wait. Did she just 'squinge' at me? I did see the squinge. I noted the squinge. I am slightly put off out and mildly offended by the squinge.
She clearly didn't believe any of my talk. I also cursed that damn body language course I took at college in the US back in the 80s... Had I endured philosophy, with the professor with the giant pot stomach who licked his lips every three seconds, I wouldn't have learnt about the squinge, and I wouldn't be left wondering why my boss disbelieved my brilliant dinner soliloquy entitled 'Polly loves change'.
I don't like change. I don't need a squinge from a spectacularly smart woman to remind me that change makes me nervous, defensive, and uncomfortable.
I've been through a tunnel of change this year. In fact 'change' sort of describes 2015 for me in six letters. I do think I've handled all the changes reasonably well, though I do have nights where I dream I'm an old Russian Jew crying mournfully at the Wailing Wall.
That must surely be a manifestation of guilt. Why I'm an old Russian Jew I'm not sure, but I assume it has something to do with my love of Fiddler on the Roof. Don't judge me just because I know the words to Sunrise Sunset off by heart.
Change can be brutal and sudden and shocking. Personal change brings with it tears and dramas, recrimination and resolution. I believe I'm through most of that for now (she says as she frantically knocks on her wooden coffee table, that she rather suspects is Formica).
Today however, I came face to face with change that I so strongly resisted and disliked that I would have taken a a Valium and Xanax cocktail by IV, had anyone been offering.
I have a new 'temporary' boss.
For some reason dealing with internal change and relationship change seems easy compared to any major work change.
Perhaps i put too much emphasis on work, and not enough on personal relationships.
After all, an old producer told me he thought my biggest outside work hobby or passion was 'work'.
Maybe I have difficulty with authority. I never did like the deputy principal at my school, Don Periton. I thought of him less like an authority figure, and more like a Bond villain. In my defence he did make me paint my cool beige Nomads black one day in his office - fashion facist.
Yes, we have a new immediate boss and within 12 seconds my heckles were up and I was ready to flee out the door.
I don't want a new boss. I liked my old boss. My old boss was young and cool, and had that "One day I'll be the head of Google" vibe going on. The new guy is older and all 'radio-y' and I decided, like a four-year-old deciding not to eat her broccoli, I was not going to swallow this at all.
I may have said to him "You're not my boss. You're a substitute teacher." It's all a fog now.
I don't like change, but do any of us really? Change causes stress and a surge of cortisone. Change causes emotional chaos. Change is only good if it's accompanied by more money, free beer or freedom from bondage.
The big boss was right to 'squinge' at me, when I blatantly lied to her about my love of change. Now I just have to work out how to avoid meetings with the new guy for the next two months.
- nzherald.co.nz