My Bro is Here For a Month

My older brother (1 year) arrived last night to hang out with me in Seattle for a month. My bro, Bryan and I went downtown and drank all night. We had a great time and after the bars closed we were invited to an after hours bar in an old warehouse. Of course we had to spend much of the night in Irish Pubs as my bro and I have attempted to try Irish pubs in every city we have visited. My bro keeps a map in his office with pins in it indicating all of the Irish pubs we’ve been in together. There are way too many pins in that map….The night started out at one of my favorite seafood restaurants with an awesome view of Seattle from Alkai Beach. We didn’t get home until 5 AM and I’m feeling a little rough today.

Normally my bro and I can’t find enough time to get together for more than couple days at a time because we live in different States and he is married and has a young son and runs the family businesses. My bro’s wife has gone to Australia on business for a month, so my nephew is here hanging out with us too. He’s going to work from my house for the next month which is cool. The list of things to do is pretty long but we’ll have a great time. My bro is one of the most positive and driven guys I know, and this is a great opportunity to spend a lot of time together. I better warn my liver in advance…..

One Colleague Ruins the Work place For All

This was another long week at work....I have some really difficult colleagues that make a great job miserable. One of my coworkers is a lawyer, an EMT, an entrepreneur, and a genius. Is there anything he doesn’t know? This guy put the “N” in Napoleon Complex. He is short, angry, domineering, rude, abrasive, inconsiderate and above all annoying. Napoleon has created a hostile environment by pitting the team members against each other . Much of my day is spent resolving conflict and trying to keep a light and positive tone in the office. My efforts have been unsuccessful.

Napoleon has alienated everyone on our team and they all joined together and went to HR and filed an Ethics compliant. The outcome was unpleasant for me as everyone is now reporting to me, and he is angry about it. He has threatened to fire everyone, called them incompetent, and then told everyone he ran background checks on the team and “discovered" things about all of us. He even told me that he knows all of my dirty secrets. Background checks will only pull public records, credit etc. So I am sure that there is nothing to discover about me. I have to say that it made me uncomfortable. Napoleon is also Jewish and seems to think he is being discriminated against.

So the ethics complaint resulted in a long drawn out investigation (which enraged my boss). We spent the last two weeks in interviews and writing statements. Napoleon was counseled by HR and our boss has been penalizing Napoleon since. As a result he has taken sick leave due to “heart problems”, “stress” and “colon problems”. He started coming in and out as he pleased, which caused my boss to require a doctor's note. He has now filed suit under the American’s with Disabilities Act. Napoleon has decided to return to work full time next week while awaiting the outcome of the suit. In the meantime I come home from work exhausted, take a nap, and then finish my work. I am also finishing a graduate degree and it seems I can’t get to bed before 1 AM. In June I will graduate and I think I’ll take a vacation in Denmark and then look for a new job.