Management trades off on griping at me, particularly around a certain late, pre-dinner hour of the day. They have a well-orchestrated routine for expressing their individual grievances, making it a true team effort. N.Lo begins shouting because he’s starving, and consequently FED UP with the Kitchen Staff. I give him a cracker, silencing him for a few minutes, and K.Lo immediately picks up his sad song. Except I really have no idea what she’s saying, because I do not understand the Language of Whine.

Momentarily distracted by the dining room curtains and the game of Butterfly, K.Lo then hands off the baton to N.Lo, who has just finished his cracker. He doesn’t want more crackers, he wants grapes. Except I have to guess at that, using the intuition and other skills I possess as a Personal Assistant; since he doesn’t yet speak English, there is really no way to know. When he’s settled in with the grapes, K.Lo initiates her nightly demand for pasta, with the highly unreasonable deadline of NOW. Meantime, I’m trying to wrap up several end-of-shift tasks such as kitchen cleanup and dinner prep, with no hope of straightening up the bosses’ workspaces before my coworker gets home.

If I didn’t know better, I would think they were trying to sabotage my work performance at the cost of future raises and reviews. 

 Tyranny exists under these innocent masks.