Mom's memory, written in 1995

The silly, 4 legged girl is me at 20. I am legally an adult but have yet to grow up. The second set of legs belongs to my older sister, Barbara. We are spending a week at my folk's summer place on Cape Cod.

Barb and I are like kids let out of school. Her moody husband is at work in the city and will be down on the weekend. He doesn't approve of me; I make Barbara laugh too much. Our eldest sister, the serious one, is here also, being sensitive and pensive, floating around the edges of our hilarity, just one beat behind. Were we wicked to be so slam-bang fast with the comeback or were we pushng away her persistent melancholy?

A heavenly 5 days without the complications of men ( they do change the equation, don't they) and then the 3 guys show up on Friday night: Barb's husband and Beverly's beau and my beau.

The sleeping arrangements were that we 3 girls would share one bedroom and, on the other side of a wall that went up almost to the ceiling, the three guys. I sat on my bed and slid my feet under the covers and my foot touched something cool and smooth. I screamed and jumped out of that bed like my feet were on fire. My sister Barbara was falling down laughing. She had put a lightbulb under the covers. I thought it was a snake.

After a long laughing while, we quieted down and the house breathed in silence. Someone on the other side of the wall broke wind. This awful noise was referred to, in our family, as a pardon - me noise and was not done by ladies. Barbara and I grabbed each other and covered our mouths in gleeful shock. Then another explosion, different tone, different timbre, rolled over the top of the wall.

Now a third report, small and high pitched, tooted out, Barb and I were hysterical.The contest became a concert in three parts. It was like the end of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, when the spaceship communicates with earthlings in musical blasts. All the while not a word was spoken. By the time the guys ran out of gas, we were literally worn out with laughter.

I'm glad I was silly and carefree and heedless of time's passing. I'm glad Barb and I wrung every bit of good out of every moment we had together. If she were alive now, we would still be driving our husbands crazy with our laughter.

The Gays Rule... so take that, upper management!

Just read the best article that is so focus affirming and makes me know what I do, and how I do it, are right. That, according to my district manager, being your employee's friend and your associates liking you is setting you up for failure, is indeed not the way to go.Wrong Wrong Wrong.
To summarize the article and glean all the best bits, they are as follows.

"Wouldn't it be nice- a boss who actually gave a damn."

In the G Quotient:Why Gay Executives are Excelling as Leaders.... and what every manager needs to know.

"Gay bosses embody a style of personalized attention that allows high -maintenence Gen Xers and Yers to maximize their performance."

"Gay bosses tend to look at how each individual brings unique abilities, and they see their job as figuring out how to best take advantage of those skills"

In this 5 year study it was found " gay male bosses produce 35 to 60 percent higher levels of employee engagement, satisfaction and morale than straight bosses"

" that 14 percent of the global corporate workforce are fully engaged by their jobs and that in a study of 20,000 workers who had quit their jobs, the primary motivator for jumping ship was their supervisors' behavior."

What makes gay bosses better?

" it may have to do with the way they survived high school.Gay people are constantly having to dodge and weave and assess how and where they're going as they grow up and that manifests itself as 3 huge skills: intuitive communications, adaptability and creative problem solving."

"Gay men are often secure with their identity and don't feel the need to abuse people in order to boost their ego."

"your typical hetero male is programmed as a boy that there are two emotions: angry and tired."

"If your boss happens to be gay, chances are you'll be happier and more fulfilled in your job."

Ha.
So there... everything I always knew about my management skills has been reinforced. I am a great manager and I know it. Whether Tedi/Natalie/Charlene/Kelly et all ever realize it seems irrelevant and it's their loss if they doesn't.
reposted and revised a decade or more after originally posted