A Tale of Busting your Tail

Once upon a time, in a town not far away at all, there was a girl who worked very hard. Too hard, some might say (often even herself). But she continued to bust it, which often meant long days and sleepless nights, laden with stress.

"I'm tired of this crap!" she'd say. But it didn't matter, the work and the foul-ups that she had to handle, just kept coming.

Then one day that was another one of those 'the sky is falling' kind of days, the boss man had a meeting with her. "You can't let this fall through" he'd say, "you've got to make sure this happens, it is crucial for the business" and on and on. She took it like she always did. "I need you to bust your a$$ on this."

Okay, buddy, this was pushing it, she thought, and quickly jumped in with a pointed, yet light-hearted "Do you imply that I am not busing my a$$?!" He assured her he wasn't and carried on.

And then it happened: sandwiched in between rattling off reasons why this was so important and things she could do to make it better, he slid a folded piece of paper in front of her and said, "you deserve this." She was a bit confused and as she started looking at the paper he said: "but you can't tell anyone!"

It occurred to her that she might have just received something very valuable with that sheet of paper... But there hadn't been raises or promotions in so long, it was generally accepted that it was just a myth that they ever happened at all. Nonetheless, there it was, laying in front of her.

Though there was no time to slow down and appreciate her good news and affirmation that the results her work had been impactful to the overall business, that monkey of frustration that had been on her back just seemed to crawl off and sit politely at the corner of her cube.

And then her phone rang again...

The End.