My new assistant seems to be working out pretty well–once I finally got him to stop calling me “Ms. James.” \u00a0I totally feel ages older than him. \u00a0I almost demanded that he call me Danni. \u00a0Not for pure reasons like wanting him to feel at home or anything noble like that. \u00a0With the age difference, and me training him, every time he added “Missus” in the front of my name, I felt like his 5th grade teacher and it went from fun flirting to creepy old lady talk in 0.2 seconds. \u00a0So, now, we have the perfect Roger- Danni relationship. \u00a0I must give him props. \u00a0I am pretty impressed with his office skills. \u00a0Not that I was completely prejudiced in thinking that, I was going to have to draw pictures for him; however, I was a bit concerned that I would occasionally hear him singing his alphabet in order to determine which letter comes first O or R. \u00a0With dimples that deep, it’s not odd for me to feel he may have a dent in his head somewhere. \u00a0Now, we will totally ignore the times I pat my feet to the tune of the alphabet song–we all KNOW I have an abyss created somewhere in the cavity of my brain.<\/p>\n
Beep! “Ms. James” \u00a0<\/em>Keith’s frustrated voice boomed through the intercom.\u00a0 I closed my eyes and hoped he thought I was gone.\u00a0 “Danni!\u00a0 I know you are in the office and can hear me.\u00a0 I didn’t hear you gallop out of the door yet.\u00a0 Have you completely forgotten about me down here? Please don’t make me have to come…”<\/em><\/p>\n “I’m on my way!”<\/em> I cut him off and say.\u00a0 I promise you, one day, I will be able to shake myself so fast that I will morph into two different beings.\u00a0 Perhaps then, I can get my stuff done while catering to everyone else’s needs of the world.\u00a0 I get up from my desk and drag myself out of my door past Roger’s desk.\u00a0 I look at him.<\/p>\n “I will be back as soon as I can.”<\/em> I manage to assure him with a smile.<\/p>\n “I’ll be here.<\/em>”<\/p>\n This boy’s momma better come get her child!\u00a0 Here he is doing all this flirting and me here…fresh out of batteries.<\/p>\n I manage to trudge down the stairs.\u00a0 By the time my foot hits the last stair at the bottom of the staircase, “Ms. James! I need you Ms. James”<\/em><\/p>\n Son-of-a “Coming, Mr. Howell.”\u00a0 <\/em>I manage to sing back, gleefully.\u00a0 WHERE is his wife?\u00a0 She knows I cannot accomplish anything while babysitting the Mister.<\/p>\n “UUUGGHHH!!” <\/em>I hear Keith yell out in disgust.\u00a0 I would, otherwise, put him in priority, but he knows the deal.\u00a0 This isn’t his first day on the job.<\/p>\n I walk down the hall towards Mr. Howell’s office and I begin to hear the chuckle-like cackle of the two wise-men–Mr. Howell and Papa Amos.\u00a0 Again, I go JUST up to the doorway and stop, pause and look, without emotion, at Mr. Howell who has tears in his eyes from obvious amusement at the current conversation.<\/p>\n “Ms. James!\u00a0 Ms. James! Tell Mr. Amos about the new guy.\u00a0 How is he doing?”<\/em><\/p>\n IS HE KIDDING ME!!\u00a0 Is this the EMERGENCY I was bellowed for?<\/p>\n I manage to unroll my eyes from under my eyelids, look at Papa Amos and smile.\u00a0 “Hey, Papa.”\u00a0 <\/em>I say, dryly.\u00a0 I wish I could be THAT person, but when Papa looks up at me, kee-keeing and coo-cooing, I can’t help the smile.<\/p>\n “I hear he’s a looker.” <\/em>Papa Amos laughs out.<\/p>\n I look over at Papa and shake my head.\u00a0 “He’s an attractive young man, but I could care less as long as he works.”\u00a0 <\/em>I’m lying, of course, but that statement will be part of my daily affirmation until it manifests or until I can at least get through it without concentrating on whether the dimples in his cheeks are the only dimples he has.\u00a0 “I don’t have time for you clucking hens.”<\/em> I change the subject and walk out.<\/p>\n “I bet you have him filing everything in the bottom cabinets first!!” <\/em>Mr. Howell yells out and he and Papa Amos join chorus in uncontrollable, hysterical laughter.<\/p>\n I walk down the hall to Keith’s office and as I approach the door, Keith says, “Oh, you finally have time for me?\u00a0 I should have written all my stuff down.\u00a0 Who knows when such an opportunity will come again.<\/em>”<\/p>\n “What is that?” <\/em>I ask back as I walk in and take a seat. “Punk-girl, Pink Sarcasm?\u00a0 Doesn’t look good on you.\u00a0 Doesn’t go with your eyes.\u00a0 What’s up, Keith?”<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0Keith’s office is\u00a0as retro metro as it comes.\u00a0\u00a0I swear he has stock in IKEA.\u00a0\u00a0If it isn’t red or yellow or\u00a0a bright color, it has\u00a0unusual shapes or rusty-rugged color.\u00a0 Keith’s oversized, leather office-chair is 3x bigger than Keith.\u00a0 He is literally swallowed up in leather chair-dimples and folds.\u00a0 The chair immediately in front of you, when you walk into his office, isn’t the sitting chair.\u00a0 It is the decoration.\u00a0 The chair that sits mildly in the corner–looking like decoration is the meeting chair.\u00a0 Nothing is as it seems in Keith’s office–befitting for such a man as Keith.<\/p>\n “Have you taken\u00a0anything that I mentioned to you into consideration?”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Daggoneit!\u00a0 I knew there was something I was supposed to be thinking about.\u00a0 Gotta play this off the best way I can. So, I say what is natural. “Keith, you have to start believing in your ideas.\u00a0 You see how I am around here.\u00a0 I have strategic planning with everything.\u00a0 Sometimes, if you wait on me for the fulfillment of your own ideas, you will miss your window of opportunity.\u00a0 No one will believe in you unless you give them something to believe in.”<\/em><\/p>\n “I know.\u00a0 You’re right.<\/em>” Keith says in a defeated voice. “I just really feel that if we expand our marketing by 10 miles each way, we will reach an untapped potential of clientele.”<\/em><\/p>\n WAIT-A-MINUTE!\u00a0 I think to myself.\u00a0 This escargot is sitting up here trying to ask me to back him up to get ME more work to do.\u00a0 BayBEH!!\u00a0 I didn’t accidentally tune out.\u00a0 Subconsciously, I heard this bull-OWNY, and I immediately zoned out to my happy place to prevent going off on him.\u00a0 So, I say the best get-me-out phrase “Okay.\u00a0 I hear you, but you know I have to weigh all the pros and cons.\u00a0 Let me think about it.”\u00a0 <\/em>I stand up and walk to the door.\u00a0 As I walk out, I turn around and look at Keith’s poor look of defeat on his face.\u00a0 I have GOT to work on a backbone when it comes to people.\u00a0 “Keith.<\/em>” I say reassuringly.\u00a0 “I know you feel lost and alone sometimes.\u00a0 If you have an idea, write it down.\u00a0 Buy me dinner and let’s talk.\u00a0 Now.\u00a0 I’m not going to do your leg work for you, but you won’t walk alone.<\/em>”<\/p>\n Keith looks up at me, mustering up a smile. “Thanks, Danni.”<\/em><\/p>\n I walk out Keith’s door, stop, close my eyes tight\u00a0and begin to shake myself as fast as I can.\u00a0 Once I feel the headache coming and my vertigo kick in, I stop shaking, open my eyes and squint-look to the right of me–DANG!<\/p>\n Still just one of me.\u00a0 Gotta shake faster next time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My new assistant seems to be working out pretty well–once I finally got him to stop calling me “Ms. James.” \u00a0I totally feel ages older than him. \u00a0I almost demanded that he call me Danni. \u00a0Not for pure reasons like wanting him to feel at home or anything noble like that. \u00a0With the age difference, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[7,11,18,20,25,70,29,31,32,36],"class_list":["post-247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memoirs-of-a-paralegal","tag-danni-j","tag-james","tag-legal","tag-legal-drama","tag-memoirs","tag-memoirs-of-a-paralegal","tag-online-drama","tag-papa-amos","tag-paralegal","tag-sweet-danni-j"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2WTgw-3Z","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetdannij.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}