The Hamlet Project

The woman they’ve brought in to be my boss has so little social grace
That I had to ask if I could shake her hand after she’d come in in a flurry, all
Mad about something that she seemed to think was my fault, but was entirely hers.
This is how she introduced herself to me, by spinning and spitting,
then sitting behind me. I had to turn around and say, “Can I shake your hand?”
To which she assented (so gracious!)
I wish I had the authority to say this line instead – to simply acknowledge that there need be no more circumstance, no more stilted negotiations, that we shake hands, this once, then part. No need for any more than that.
I think there are some organizations wherein the workers get a say as to who becomes their boss. When universities hire tenure track professors, they ask the students. But they never ask. And if they do you really have to lie.
If they’d asked me in this case, I would have happily acquiesced to whatever they needed me to say, told them they were in the right and then found a way to shake hands and part.