Dodgers' Game

At work, there's a young guy (maybe 21, 22 years old) who is doing an internship with us. Owing to the prevailing dynamics in our department, he and I have developed a slightly conspiratorial relationship. Our department is run by women, all of them former secretaries who have managed to move up the ladder a bit. Unfortunately, they have brought along a lot of their secretary-like behaviors with them: rote responses to problems, orderliness over substance, a bitchy efficiency that in reality is not very efficient at all. But I should not dwell on that because I do not want to have their jobs. Anyway, these ladies frequently blow their lids at minor things, and they have assumed the attitude that we males in the office must be closely monitored and kept in line or the world as they know it will crumble into tiny, sharp-edged concrete bonbons.

So where is all this leading? Well, the young intern quite regularly screws things up (but only slightly) on our computer and network system. He quickly learned that the ladies in the department would skin him alive if he let them know. So now he very discreetly comes to me for help. In most cases, I know how to fix things. I quietly fix them and subsequently keep my lips sealed about whatever happened. After months of this, the intern and I have now fallen into a pattern of relating to each other with secretive smiles, mischievous eye contact, and subtle ways of discussing matters so that no damaging information falls into the hands of our lady tormentors. There's really no point to this narrative. Just unmitigated delight.