Hi there, guys and dolls! Why, it’s workday Wednesday. This is a hard one, isn’t it? Just back from the holidays, no time off in sight, except for the annual bad cold or flu that just has to rear its ugly head. Sigh. And wouldn’t you know, just one thing worse has to add to it – the dreaded temp.

Just ducky, because it’s not just any temp, oh no! See, the boss has decided that his “niece” Jenny (seriously, there’s no family resemblance whatsoever and let me tell you, if any of my uncles looked at me like that, he’d be out of the clan just like that) needs a job and in our office she belongs. Just for a little while, mind you. Now here’s what Debbie dug up about it – Jenny’s the boss’s new squeeze on the side and she’s threatening to take up a few new boytoys, er, hobbies, unless he takes her on holiday. He can’t get away because his workload right now is oh so important (that is, he can’t come up with a plausible excuse to tell his wife yet, there’s only so often those “conventions” can be used). So, to keep his eye on her, he’s offered to throw a little cash her way if she’ll come and “work” as his secretary. Temporarily, of course, til he can get away. Guessing she’s now the highest paid employee in the history of the company now.

So there’s Jenny, basically doing nothing. And wearing next to nothing, constantly sighing, showing up in beach attire under her fur coat she got for Christmas, flipping through travel brochures, lolling around and whining to the big guy about when are they leaving.

The gal’s a real pain. Now it’s not that we care about her lack of productivity for the sake of the letting us down with how little she does, but now that he’s got her here, he’s always around, keeping his eye on her, and then when she whines, he gets grumpy and expects all of us to work. For goodness sake, we’re the ones who should be loafing about, making travel plans, playing hanky panky in the office and basically doing nothing. We’ve done our time, we’ve earned it.

Well, we didn’t have to wait too long. Wouldn’t you know it? The boss’s wife showed up on shopping day in the city, thinking she would surprise her husband for lunch. Luck had it that he was in his office on an important business call (that turned out to be true, how rare), and Rosie from the sales department saw her wandering around, trying to find his office. Good old Rosie, thinking she was innocently trying to help Mrs. Boss pass the time while she was waiting, brought her over to the family member, Jenny.

I do wish I could describe verbatim what the boss’s wife said when she was introduced to the stranger temp, Jenny. I think it started out with a simple, “Niece, my eye!” Followed by language that a sailor would have to censor. A shoe or two flew, as well as a pulled out hairpiece skidding across the floor like a scurrying hamster.

Jenny was out of the office and the boss’s wife had booked herself on the big man’s expense account before before he was off his call. It all happened so fast, he had no idea what happened. Mrs. Boss walked in, hung up his call, threw his highball in his face, cuffed him upside the head and left, throwing on the fur coat that Jenny left behind in her narrow office escape.

Five minutes later, out left the boss, slouching, hat pulled down, chasing after his trust fund wife, needing to make amends and hoping to grovel enough to get to go on the tropical holiday he paid for.

And just like that, back to normal by quitting time.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more posts. And don’t forget to give my Poppy Cove Mysteries a try if you haven’t already. 

Toodles, Barbara Jean