like favoritism but with hate

i will relate this story as i experienced it. this happened today.

my supervisor (jim) and i spent the morning and the first part of the afternoon in the conference room because there were some software specifications that needed to reviewed and we also needed to write test cases for them. the reason it took both of us was because they were huge, poorly planned, and poised to unleash devastation upon the programming and testing departments because they were contradicting each other. also, they didn't meet half the requirements that the customers wanted, but oh well.

we get out, and one of the programmers had a question about a flowchart i had made. it turned out that since we had changed some other enhancement, that flowchart was inaccurate and needed to be updated. i was hungry and wanted to take my lunch, but it was time-sensitive, so i grabbed my food and kept working.

but then my brain was shot, so i decided to take my lunch.

at 1:53, the old man appears behind me.

the old man: "what are you looking at, stan?"
me: "uh, google reader."
the old man: "why?"
me: "i'm on lunch."
the old man: "at 2 o clock?"
me: "i'm wrapping up lunch."
the old man: "what time did you go on lunch?"
me: "about 1:20." *glance at clock* "i guess i'm about 3 minutes over, so i'll shut this down."
the old man: "i'm not looking at 3 minutes over, i'm looking at 2 o clock."

then he turned his back and started talking to al, then walked away. i emailed that conversation snippet to jim, because it's the sort of thing we simultaneously laugh and get really mad at. he wasn't at his desk, but when he got back, he instant messaged me:

jim: O
jim: M
jim: G
jim: he pulled me into the conference room just now

except it wasn't in response to my email. he took me out into the hall and told me what happened...

the old man had walked by my desk and seen that i was on the internet. instead of saying something to me, he talked to jim:

the old man: what time do you all take lunch?
jim: people take their lunches at different times. who are you asking about?
the old man: you, stan, and tom.
jim: we typically take late lunches, around 12:30 or 1.
the old man: well, i was just at stan's desk and i saw him using the internet.
jim: okay..? so he took a later lunch, it seems.
the old man: it really pisses me off when people use the internet. you need to set a lunch time and make sure everyone takes it at that time.

naturally, i was livid, but i had to stuff it deep down because we had a 2 o clock meeting. when we got out of that around 3:15, i asked jim if there was a copy of the employee handbook on the network. he had a hardcopy handy, so we flipped through it and found the lunch policy.

all it says is that lunch is an hour long and should be taken between 11 am and 2 pm. technically, my lunch is half an hour so i can leave earlier, but i was still well within the 11-2 window. the old man was just being petty and controlling.

in other news, i saw an awesome video this week that is pretty much exactly like what working at asinine, inc is like.

enjoy!