That’s Why

(At our staff meeting)
Boss:  I want you all to get out of here as early as possible today.

Meanwhile, I had already committed to being there for the full day (though the office was closing at 3) for a variety of reasons…

After the staff meeting, the boss and I put my contractor to work on finalizing a document, though we told her to finish it up as quickly as she could so that she could still get out of there early.

About an hour later…

Contractor:  Jon, you’re going to hate my document.  It’s not as nice as you would make it.
Me:  Did you move all of the content from the Excel file into it?
Contractor:  The formatting is terrible and it just looks ugly.
Me:  Did you move all of the content from the Excel file into it?
Contractor:  I mean, it’s really ugly and -
Me:  Answer my question.
Contractor:  …well, yeah, but -
Me:  No buts.  Send it to me so that I can finish it up, then get the hell out of here and have a nice weekend.

Shortly thereafter, one of the primary reasons I had committed to stay for the full day went away, so I was going to clean up the document, go to the one meeting I had, then call it a day about an hour and a half early.

Boss:  I really need you to help me with this…
Me:  Okay, send it.

I managed to finish that up pretty quickly (Boss:  You saved my life.), daydreamed my way through my meeting, knocked out the formatting issues with the other document, and then was preparing to get out about an hour early, but then I heard the boss knocking around in her office and went in to ask her something before I left.

Boss:  Why are you still here?
Me:  Well, I can be gone, I just -
Boss:  Wait, help me with this before you go.
Me:  …and that’s why I’m still here.

I did manage to get out fifteen minutes early, anyway…