I'm so predictable

Part of my job is basically being a ghostwriter. Not like my high school English teacher was a ghostwriter for the Baby-Sitters Club books, but writing articles or letters or whatever. The other day, I drafted a letter on behalf of one of our senior people that I thought was actually pretty fun to do, and I thought I'd hit his tone and his voice pretty well. I love knocking off assignments like this, because I can do them quickly and people are usually grateful for the help.

So anyway, I sent the letter to its author yesterday, and ran into him this morning in the dining room, before I'd checked my email. He stopped me and said, "Hey, did you get my note back on that letter?" and I told him I hadn't yet, and he said that he'd taken a look and made some pretty substantive edits that he'd returned to me, but that he thought it'd now be okay.

I felt horrible, and told him I was sorry he'd had to take the time to re-write it, and thinking how much I wished he'd just punted it back to me and told me to re-do it, rather than taking it on himself when he has a hundred other things to do, and I was kicking myself for not having had a more substantive conversation with him at the outset about how he wanted to approach the piece, and once I got back to my desk it took me like 10 minutes to open the email from him.

Which basically said, "Terrific -- let's get it out as is."

And for a few seconds I was confused as hell, and then I realized he'd just been trying to get a rise out of me in the dining room (mission accomplished there, boss man). And I realize objectively that it was kind of funny, and that I'm an impossibly easy target because I'm so nakedly neurotic about everything, and this guy so enjoys capitalizing on that.

So I printed out the letter and brought it up for him to sign, and he apologized -- sort of -- for stressing me out, but he couldn't help pointing out that perhaps it was good for me to get a dose of this kind of therapy once in a while to help keep my neuroses in check.

I hate that he's right, and that I'm that ridiculously easy to figure out.