Included in the Workday Recovery Kit is cooking dinner when you don't really want to.

I am at my desk concentrating hard on a diabolical task. This particular card game has got me gasumped, the computer is cheating surely, it has to be.
"Whats for dinner mum?" calls out a voice from the other extreme of the house.
Not answering and still concentrating, when the question is called out again but much, much louder. Darn! the kids don't fall for the selective deafness trick anymore!
Sigh.
"Food! and if your lucky, it'll be edible" Not taking my eyes of the screen.
It's 6pm, and the daily family maintenance of providing a suitable meal for hungry mouths seems unavoidable. The trouble is I am not hungry, well not anymore. Half an hour a go, I stumbled through the door after a horrendously busy day of running the business, whilst trying in earnest not to have to speak to a particular person, made a quick 2 slices of toast with Tahini, which was my breakfast, lunch and dinner in one mouthful.
"Cheesy Awesomeness Mum!" calls out young master Ritch and the rest of the troupe agree.
"Nooooooooooooooooooooo, No, No and No some more OK!!". The kids all call out yes, yes and some more yes!!.
The no and yes thing swings back and forth a few more times and I still haven't won a single game in the meantime.
The next office chair I get will definitely not have wheels. I protest loudly, as Ritch grabs the back of my chair and starts driving me into the kitchen backwards.
"No, I don't want to! you can't make me do it, I don't want to........" my crying plea's fall on deaf ears, as Ritch starts piling up the ingredients onto my lap. He turns the oven on, still dragging his protesting mum around in her wheely chair. He opens the fridge throwing more items on the growing mountain on my lap.
"Due to the lack of interest on my behalf, I have cancelled dinner this evening!". They don't fall for that one either
I just have to do it don't I?,
Cooking the 'Cheesy Awesomeness' gets underway with the close monitoring of the 2 youngest members of the family, just in case I decide to escape.
They're lucky this time, it was brilliantly edible.

There are times that I wish that things I don't want to do turn out that way, like some work days. Like today's workday, which had me spinning around faster than a child's spinning top, except without the colours.  I have come to rely on Dom, our 'gopher', wonderfully adept at handling everything, including filtering of incoming phone calls. Though I still sack him nearly every week, he just laughs.

There's a company that headhunted me for a design project over a year ago which got off to a fantastic start. With a team of 4 people from this company, another was added for some reason, having been transferred from another department. The original 4 left the company within 2 weeks, when this new member was added. Unfortunately I inherited her as the project was almost completed. After a few phone conversations with this person, I too throw the towel in and resigned from the project.

She rang again today, as she has done regularly for the last 10 months, and it's never a pleasant outcome.
As Dom whispered who it was, I dove under my desk, shaking my head furiously, grabbing my fortunately large handbag to cover my screams of denial, frustration, anguish, and turmoil. With the most politest of professional voices he calmly tells the person "She won't be taking your phone call today or any other day! promptly hanging up. Phew........
My bag starts to ring..........................
Throwing the bag in his direction, he then throws it to Zjarie, our sales manager, like a hot potato, who can't find anyone else close enough, hurls the bag into the nearby fabric bin. They both back away from the bin, I stay cowering under my desk till it finally stops.
Dom quickly runs down to the production area before I reach him, because he was the one that gave her  my private mobile number. Hoping to punch him in the arm, I call out he's sacked instead as he escapes out of my reach. A couple of minutes later our production manger punches him in the arm, because he had been holding onto an order he forgot to let the team know about. I catch up to him and punch the other arm to even it up and yet again remind him he is sacked.
"Yeah, yeah I know", he goes back to his desk and picks up where he left off, playfully nursing fictitious injuries on both his arms.
2 hours later, after several phone calls from this person that I didn't take, I have just have to do it don't I? I take a very, very deep breath and accept the call from this person, remind her yet again that I have resigned, no amount of increase of financial incentive will sway me either. (It has quadrupled in value)
.
It always goes the same way, she will pipe up and ask "Why did you ring me" I'll answer that she had called me, then she will blurt out quite contritely "Why on earth would I ring you and how did you get this number, whats your name again, why have you got that name, it doesn't make sense, I mean what is it?" she demands
Replying to that with a sigh "You rang me about about the project that I resigned from remember? Please refrain from calling again"
She will start going on about how important she is, she needs me to finish the project as the original team members have now apparently all moved to Siberia and are unlocatable. While making demands of me on the phone in which I have no opportunity to interupt, she constantly orders her staff around in the most bizarre of fashions, like not to move from their desk, or to only cross the left leg over the right leg, never the other way around.
Last week I heard her admonish a staff member with "Why is that book on the left hand side of your desk, I want it on the right hand side of your desk and why are you fiddling with your hair. I don't like you fiddling with your hair while I am talking to you, please move the book now. More to the right, down a bit, a little bit more, that will do, why are you playing with that book?",
Or she will demand a staff member to move a phone cord so it sits in a particular fashion.
I take a deeper breath and remind her yet again that I have indeed resigned and that there is no point in contacting me again. She will inform me not to get off track and how is it relevant to the project.
I quit, that's more than relevant.
Yes she says, "I have heard it all before, now it's very important that I get this email before 9 am". Then she will say that I have taken up enough of her time and that I should in future call her at a more suitable time.
Dom hands me a bottle of water with 3 panadol and a coffee chaser.  With a wink he says "I can assume that I will be booking you a flight to Siberia sometime very soon?".

I have to wonder whose cat did I run over in a previous life.