Sadly today is Bring Your Genetic Mutants To Work Day. I have never liked these days at the office and it all stems back to working for Merrill Lynch and my boss's two bratty daughters. Okay, her oldest wasn't that bad. Her youngest I wanted to beat within an inch of her life.

Her youngest daughter, on my first Bring Your Poster Children for Birth Control to Work Day at Merrill Lynch, her daughter treated me like crap and when she took one of her consorts into her mother's office, she referred me as her mother's secretary and asked me to bring them some water while they worked on their assignment for their group project. I politely told her that I was not her mother's secretary, took out two styrofoam cups from the party supply drawer near my desk, and pointed them to the water fountain.

She wasn't having any of this and said (with one hand on her jutted hip), "But you work for my mother."

I looked at her and very sternly said (as my patience was wearing thin), "Yes. I work for her. Not for you."

Pause. "Well, I'm going to tell her you wouldn't help us." With that, she took the cups and got her own water. I ran into my boss in the hall about ten minutes later and told her what had happened. She apologized profusely and said she would talk with her and it wouldn't happen again.

Fast forward to the next Oh Dear God You Brought Her With You To Work Again? Day and the youngest daughter proceeded to treat me like shit again. Fax this. Email that. Could you answer the phone? Then came the bomb that almost sank my career there...

"Has my mother called me back yet?" she asked in her snippy tone when she returned from one of her group meetings. I, myself, was thankfully in a training class that day and was using my lunch hour to catch on my work for the day and hadn't even been to my desk once that day.

"I wouldn't know. I've been in class myself today."

"Well, I called her on her cell phone and she said she would call me back and I've been waiting for her so we can go to lunch. Can you go get her?"

That's when I had it. I put down my sandwich, took my hands off of the keyboard, stood up, and in front of my coworkers told the nine year old where to shove it in the most adult way possible. I then left my desk to cool off, was lucky enough to run into one of my boss' colleagues who told me that my boss was in fact waiting for her daughter in the lobby to come down for lunch and I took off to meet her before her brood did. I again explained what happened and what I did and everyone else who could back me up. I then told her that I was not going to be treated that way by her daughter again (she also had a habit of getting rude on the phone with me) and if it persisted, I would leave the office for the rest of the day because her actions were totally unwarranted and I was not going to take orders from an eight year old. My boss listened and just as I was leaving, her youngest daughter showed up.

I later learned after I left Merrill Lynch that my boss had not once talked to her daughter about how she treated me and in fact thought that I was just overreacting to the situation. Everyone who heard her daughter, though, sided with me.

Maybe this is why I need to wait some more before becoming a parent.