Wait, don't go! I'm not through demeaning you yet?

I had a really crappy assistant, who I fired in November. She couldn't schedule a meeting, she thought she was better than her position but did nothing to prove it, she couldn't spell, and she had some special power for pissing off volunteers. And finally, I said enough, and she was gone. I'm assuming she's working somewhere else, but HR is shifty. She could be buried in my yard. There was some fresh dirt there the other day. Anything's possible with HR.

In the meantime, we interviewed some new candidates, and hired one. Ridiculously overqualified, but she said in the interview that she wanted a place she could grow and stay for years and years. Hey, she said so in an interview, it must be the truth, right?

Wrong. The falseness of that optimism astounds me, a week later. I am shocked at my naivete. It's like the time I heard loud noises from my parents' room, and I assumed they were having sex. But then what was the dead moose for, Dad? And the bullet holes in the TV? Answer me that, Mother!

Anyhoo, it was going great. She really was amazing - she was serious, read up on information on her own time, didn't use her work phone for personal calls...she even called me sir. SHE CALLED ME SIR, dammit. I can't even get Child to call me sir. Now that he's 2, he only refers to me as "the bald one, with the glasses and the fear." Sass gets you nowhere but a paddlin', boy.

Last week there was some bad weather, and my assistant is nowhere to be found. She doesn't answer the phone, she's not responding to e-mails, nothing. The woman sitting next to her is worried, even a little frantic - they've already bonded (see? Wonderful!).

Finally, around lunch, HR receives an e-mail: "After much thought and consideration I have decided not to continue working at ______. Thank you." NOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

I had plans! We were going to be a team! I had t-shirts, and hats! And now it's all ruined.

Was it the sexual harassment? Because I told Wife she's not allowed to call you anymore. Was it the pantsless work environment? Because I can wear a kilt. It's scratchy, but if you come back I'll deal. I won't scream at the wallpaper anymore, and if you want, I'll even throw out my dead bat collection, even though it was voted "Best Dead Bat Collection" at least year's holiday party.

At least tell me what I did wrong. I mean, it could literally be anything.

And now, I have to deal with a temp who rolls his eyes every time I ask him to stop using my desk for his earwax ball. I don't care if you work better with it over here, buddy. It's getting all confused with my earwax ball, and that will simply not do.