The other day I was having lunch with some of my girlfriends. They were all complaining about their jobs, their bosses, their fear of down-sizing, etc.

I was listening closely, as all good friends would, when suddenly one of them looked at me, pointed an accusing finger and said, “YOU don’t have problems like this! YOU have the perfect job.”

Naturally I protested but it was half-hearted. After lunch, I began to reflect on why working for myself is so great and I came up with five, very important reasons.

1) I CAN’T GET FIRED.

My boss (me) is not about to self-fire her only employee. It would wipe out all of her profits in one fell swoop. Thus, as my only employee, I have HUGE job security.

Knowing this, I must admit that I take huge advantage of my boss (me). I come in to work late; eat at my desk even though there have been numerous memos regarding this transgression; talk on the phone during working hours to my boyfriend, mother, kids, friends, etc; and generally let my boss (me) know that I know what she knows, which is that I’m pretty much irreplaceable.

Job security is a beautiful thing.

2) EVERY DAY IS DRESS-DOWN FRIDAY.

Since I’m the only employee, I have the pleasure of setting the Dress-Down Friday policy. By various methods I’ve managed to stretch it to include all days of the week. I can even work nekkid if I wish. I don’t, though. I’m always a little bit leery of getting a nipple closed in my laptop. Don’t laugh. It happened to a writer friend of mine. THREE stitches. No kidding.

There are other reasons I don’t work nekkid, as well. My boss (me) has furnished my cubicle with a huge, rather imposing leather office chair that seems to say “Don’t you dare put your bare butt in THIS chair!”

I’m serious. The chair really seems to talk. If you don’t believe me, come on over to my office, hover over the chair with your bare butt and see if you can hear it, too.

Of course, besides nekkid, there are other levels of “casualness.” I’m not a slave to my boss’s (my) out-moded sense of propriety. Despite numerous in-house memos to the contrary, I am proud to say that I frequently wear my pajamas to work.

Of course, I’m careful not to wear my jammies on days I have a meeting with my boss (me) as that could cause a confrontation and I’m really not a confrontational sort of person. As my annual evals say, I tend more along the lines of “subversive.” Still, just to make my point, I have shown up for meeting with my boss (me) while wearing pink, muffy slippers.

Take THAT, you boss, you (me)!

3) I CAN TAKE THREE HOUR LUNCHES AND MY BOSS (me) WON’T DOCK MY PAY.

She could, of course. But she would suffer as much as I do. Why, you ask? Because then my boss (me) would have to take SHORTER lunches than I do in order to prove that I’m not in the office while she’s gone.

It’s rather nice that I don’t have to sneak in the back door, pretend I’ve been working in my car in the parking lot, or just got back from “the restroom” when she comes in from a long lunch.

4) NO FEAR OF GETTING SUED BY MY BOSS (me) OR VICE VERSA.

No matter how many off color jokes I tell, I can’t get slapped with a sexual self-harassment suit. It just can’t happen.

Nor would I sue my boss (me) if I slipped and fell on a banana peel while making a mad dash to the fridge during a coffee break and pinched a nipple between two loose tiles. Don’t laugh. It happened to a friend of mine. THREE stitches. No kidding.

Oh, I sometimes may irritate myself with my latest batch of “How Many Tennessean Baptist Romance Writers does it take to . . .” jokes, but I’m not that easy to offend. And besides, most of those jokes are true, which sort of takes the “that’s not funny factor” right out of it.

And the fifth and MOST IMPORTANT REASON IT’S GREAT TO WORK FOR MYSELF . . . .

5) THE BREAK ROOM COFFEE/SECRET CHOCOLATE STASH IS ALLLLL MINE!

So many of you wrote and told me how much you enjoyed the snippets I wrote about my guyfriend that I’ve decided to write a little bit about him in every update. If you enjoy Real Life Romance, read on! If you’re a die-hard anti-romantic, you might want to find something else to read like oh, say, The Bitter Woman’s Guide to Staying Old and Soured.

Last week, I had to go out of town. When I returned, I met my hot and sexy guyfriend for lunch. We had a really nice picnic at one of the break tables under some trees in front of his office. Afterwards, we went for a walk around the lake by his building, holding hands and just enjoying being back together.

When we finished, he asked me to come to his cubicle and see where he’d hung some pictures of us. So off we went.

As we entered his office, one of the women he works with stopped by to say hello. She gave me a hug and said, “You’re back! Nate’s missed you. He was so sad all week. All he did was mope and mope.”

Needless to say, Nate turned a lovely shade of red. But I positively beamed. Sometimes the sweetest things we hear from our beloveds don’t come from their own lips, but from those that know them when we aren’t there.

Ah, true love! Isn’t it grand? :o)

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