. . . on good times and noodle salad
THIS WEEK I LOST my office sidekick. My buddy. My wingwoman. Whatever. She’s gone. She had my back. She was the kind of person with a knack for wordlessly popping chocolate biscuits or headache tablets or tubs of hummus on my desk with a wink and a smile. The kind of person who could from 20 paces discern my “it’s all gotten a teeny bit too much for me” face and bundle me, Secret-Service style, into the bathroom so I could have a mini-rant during which my mascara may or may not run. She always had excellent tissues and a wide ranging stash of luxury snacks. And, oh, God – and this is the most important part – she made me laugh.
Those of us lucky enough to have jobs all need a sidekick to stand alongside us in the trenches of modern working life. Most of the time it is unwise to choose your boss as that sidekick. I hardly need to explain how the boss-as-sidekick scenario could easily lead to post-work cocktail sessions with said boss, drinking too many Long Island iced teas and worrying about that thing you said that might be held against you in a human-resources meeting or a boardroom.
There may well be a voice in your head saying “this is your boss, step away from the tequila”, but suddenly it seems like a great idea to explain to him exactly why his managerial style makes David Brent look positively sophisticated. What? You are just being helpful. He is your bossfriend. It’s all good. Yeah, right, and the next thing popped wordlessly on your desk is your P45.
It is amazing then that my dear, departing sidekick is one of my bosses. An American sweetheart who sprinkled The Irish Timeswith her own brand of positivity and anything is possible bravura and pizzazz. Through decades and departments she edited, she produced, she mentored, she wrote, she subbed, she styled, she shimmied. She launched this very Magazine and along the way kick-started the careers of several people in The Irish Timeswho by rights should sing Hosannas to her every single day.
She was also in charge of my weekly ramblings here. In this capacity, she saved me from myself on more than one occasion. She was the height of diplomacy at these times. “No, sweetie, it’s very good, it’s excellent, Pulitzer prize-winning. But just think about it. Do you really want to tell the nation that you did X and then Y and then you did XYZ? It’s too much information my friend, even for you.”
She was the best boss I ever had. A bossfriend. It’s rare. More than that. A bossfriend with benefits. She lives in The House With the Best View in Ireland. Only the very mean-spirited could blame me for escaping there overnight occasionally, citing “intense work-related-type matters” if my boyfriend or children have the temerity to wonder why I’ve not come home from the office. I am grateful that she allows me unlimited access to that ever-moving portrait of cloud and sea and cruise ships and, as night falls, twinkling lights and shooting stars, a vista that’s almost as rejuvenating as her company.
A colleague joked recently that I have my own wing in my bossfriend’s house. The West Wingle, I like to call it. And I’d like to put it on record that I don’t see why, just because she has left for new adventures, this highly satisfactory arrangement should not continue.
I think it will. I discovered on a recent sleepover that one of her all-time favourite movies is Overboard. Over quinoa and gingersnaps we quoted lines at each other from the finest and most under-appreciated amnesia film of all time. Then she brought up As Good as It Gets,another of her favourites. And in that House with the Amazing View, we sat and watched a scene from that movie over and over on my phone. Jack Nicholson is in the back of the car and he's just been listening to a big sob story and Helen Hunt says "we all have these terrible stories to get over", and Nicholson says "It's not true. Some of us have great stories, pretty stories, that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. But a lot of people, that's their story: Good times. Noodle salad."
And we laughed like eejits because somehow even when the darkest clouds are in the sky you can boil everything down to that. We laughed until the lights on the far shore grew hazy and she filled me a hot water bottle and found two paracetamol and helped me to bed. There have been tough times. We’ve told each other some sad tales and there’s been plenty of bleary mascara in the office bathroom and elsewhere, but most of all it’s pretty much been good times, noodle salad with my former office buddy and friend forever, Patsey Leary Murphy. Long may we laugh.
In other news . . .
I’m looking forward to seeing Dancing Shoes – The George Best Story, which just opened in the Grand Canal Theatre. It’s a musical so am desperately hoping it features my favourite playground rhyme about George sung to the tune of Jesus Christ Superstar: “Georgie Best, superstar, walks like a woman and wears a bra.” A classic