I had a really strange dream before I woke up the other morning. I worked at a law firm instead of an electrical engineering firm. We were trying to negotiate a dispute with another law firm. The opposing counsel was at our office building and they were causing a bunch of trouble. No matter which lawyer our company sent in, they were delaying and refusing to negotiate. They had sent in a lot of the lawyers and our people were sick of it. The opposing counsel had seven lawyers there, working on the lawsuit.

He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.             Douglas Adams (1952 – 2001), “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”

Things were going poorly, so they sent me in to procrastinate while they regrouped. I was a secretary there just like I’m a secretary in real life, but the opposing counsel didn’t know this. When I walked in, I took the notes from all the of our lawyers. While I was doing this, I noticed that the opposing lawyers weren’t even working on the paperwork for the deal that we were negotiating. They were working for another client instead of even trying to negotiate this deal. For some reason, they were stalling. I read them the riot act. I asked them if it was an ethics violation to double bill. I took away their folders and piled them on a different table. Once I got our notes collected, our lawyers dismissed and their other work piled on the table, I thought that we could talk about the issue at hand. Instead, the leader of the opposing counsel started interviewing me like I was a potential employee.   Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.             Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849), “Eleonora”

At that moment, I realized that they were just stalling so they could recruit from our office. They were trying to hire away our best lawyers. She interviewed me, asked who my immediate supervisor was and who worked for him. While I had been gathering the notes from our team, I noticed that one of our lawyers was looking for a job elsewhere, so I told the opposing partner that I worked with her. When she offered me a job, I told her that I had made a personal commitment to myself to stay at this law firm for two years and that there was no way that I would go against a commitment like that. She seemed to like me even more at that point and was wanting to interview more of our lawyers.

Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.             William Dement

Then I took control. I told them that no one was going to leave this room until we came to a decision on this issue. There would be no more interviewing to recruit our lawyers. No one would be allowed to take any calls. No one would even be allowed to go to the bathroom, including me. There was a plant in the conference room that they could pee in and if this goes too long, even I would use it and let the smell convince them to get to an agreement. At that point, my immediate supervisor, the lawyer for whom I worked, knocked on the door. I told him that no one was allowed to leave this room once they came in, so if he needed to use the restroom, he better do it now. I guarded the door and confiscated a cell phone before I woke up.

Dreams that do come true can be as unsettling as those that don’t.             Brett Butler, ‘Knee Deep in Paradise’

While I was getting tough with the opposing counsel, I realized how much I missed being able to be a complete and utter bitch when I was a real estate agent. I really used that job to get out a lot of aggression. Now that I work at a nice and civilized engineering firm, I have no use for those tough girl talents. I know that Dilbert’s engineering firm has Alice, who can swear like a carpenter, but we don’t have that here and we really don’t need it. Instead, I spend weeks and even months without having to turn into the vocal equivalent of Xena. I haven’t been in a position in which I had to beat anyone into submission with my words for so long and I didn’t even realize that I missed it.

Idle hands are the devil’s tools.             English Idiom, GoEnglish.com   Just thinking about it right now, I really miss it. I feel a real desire to get “medieval  on your ass.” I don’t have a nemesis and there is no one in my life anymore that has caused me harm. I tell you, this is how evil begins. Imagine this villain at her lovely engineering firm. She used to be in an environment where she had to fight to survive, and now she is living a life of ease and grace. After so many years of hardship and struggle, this life seems foreign and boring. She had worked so hard to achieve this life, but she found it a tad unfulfilling.  Then there is the fateful meeting with the nemesis. Something clicks on that day and she devotes her life to evil.

Everybody needs a nemesis. Sherlock Homes had his Dr. Moriarty, Mountain Dew has its Mello Yellow, even Maggie has that baby with the one eyebrow.             Lisa Simpson, Springfield Weekly

I can only hope that I never meet my nemesis. Things are so nice and calm where I work that I could be drawn to pure evil right now. I guess that’s why I’m keeping busy with the weblog and the quotations site. I want to prevent my hands becoming tools for evil. If I keep busy of my own accord, then I will never have to let the tough girl free and unleash her power on my nemesis.