Evolution, of sorts

I so should not blog about this but I can't help it. I am so blessed in my professional circumstances, I have no call for cranky work blogging. But I have just one tiny little thing that provides me some solidarity, some connection to the zillions of bloggers out there who focus on bitching about work just about full-time. So basically, I'm blogging about work out of a need to belong.

There's a guy who's NOT my boss - remember, I have fabulous bosses right now - but who seems to think he is. Let's call him Overzealous Ozzie. He was sending me emails (with little red URGENT exclamation points!) demanding that I account for my progress on various items of business for which he is IN NO WAY ACCOUNTABLE and for which I am 100% accountable TO SOMEBODY ELSE. Namely, to my boss, who is absolutely welcome to call me up eight times a day if he wants and demand an accounting of my progress, and I will cheerfully give it to him. Cheerfully. Only he doesn't do that, because he's a good boss, and I'm doing my job.

Truly, this dynamic is downright weird. I've never experienced anything like it. During my Time of No Sleep, I shot off a couple of pretty smart-mouthed emails to Ozzie, putting him in his place I suppose. As I have acknowledged, these were not my best moments. Nonetheless, either he has gotten the message or he is just evolving and adapting, like the Borg. Now I get emails about things that are -still! - completely my responsibility and not in any way his, only they say things like "I'm looking forward to seeing the next iteration of this presentation. If you could please send the pieces to me, I'd be happy to check that they are the correct versions. Thanks for your work on this!" Moving from overtly patronizing to passive-aggressively patronizing. I guess that's progress. But at least I can be more gracious in my responses - "What a nice offer of assistance, but I'm comfortable that everything is in order. And thanks for your work - no need to thank me, since after all this is my job! :)" Hint, HINT. My job, dude. Mine. Go find your own to obsess about. Sheesh.