The Devil Went Down to Mississippi

Ah ha! Blogger is fixed!

So, speechie wrote something in her blog about digsters not updating their blogs, so I thought I would write an entry. I know she wasn't specifically talking about me, but I thought maybe people might want to know the everyday stuff going on in my life. Plus, I'm bored at work.

Things are going okay with Ethan being gone. And that's the truth. Okay. Not great, sometimes bad. On my end, it's just lonely and boring. But mostly, I am hanging out with my friends, who are saints for spending so much time with me. On his end, he's pretty miserable.

His boss is an asshole of the utmost degree. He keeps threatening to fire E. Good, right? No, because E doesn't get to come home; he would just be placed in another job which potentially be more dangerous, and it would not look good for his career. Recently, his boss seriously told him he was going to move him to another job. Well, E was upset enough to talk to the IG about it, who said that he can't do that without a signature from the General. So that's good. But he's still got LtCol Mephistopheles for a boss. So that's bad. For a while, E thought his unit had lost a whole bunch of equipment, and that he was going to be personally financially responsible for it. Very bad. But they found it, so that's good.

Here's another example of why his boss is evil: E and a few of his guys were issued cell phones. LtCol Mephistopheles told him they could use the phone for short calls home. Then, two weeks later, Ole Mephy says no, you can't use the phone for short calls home. So my sometimes-too-honest-for-his-own-good husband says, "Well, I've been making a few calls home." Note: none of these calls were over 20 minutes; I know because my phone times them. Well, then his boss tells him to write a letter to the inspection board or something, detailing how much time he spent using the cell phone for personal purposes. So now E cannot call me as frequently because he has to use the phone in the command post, and I am not permitted to call him (except in case of emergency). His boss also likes to blame him for things aren't true, like saying that his guys didn't have any water, when they did.

What really hacks me off about this guy is that 1) he never forgives a mistake E makes and 2) he never takes any responsibility. He is constantly hanging E out to dry. Ugh.

So while things are fine on my end, E's life is really bad, punctuated by improvements to mostly crappy. Right now, things are good. The Dark Lord has found someone else to yell at (probably because they spent too long in the crapper or something), so E is off the hook. But I am not holding my breath, because every time things start to look up for him, they get worse.

Believe it or not, I think things will get better once he goes to Kuwait. And that's the one piece of really good news: he's going to Kuwait. So he'll be much safer, and he'll be living at Camp Fufu, where they leave a mint on your pillow every night. Okay, not exactly, but believe me, his accomodations sound pretty nice for a deployment to the desert!

I'm sure you guys are like, what are you bitching about? His life isn't that tragic. But I can't really explain what a bad boss this guy is. Plus, I can just hear the stress and unhappiness in E's voice when I talk to him. Which makes me feel very sad, because I want to hug him and I can't. So although he's safe, things are not good.

I need to think of a better name for his boss. LtCol Mephistopheles is too long, and I'm not sure I like The Dark Lord....oooh I thought of a good one, but it would use his last name....hmmm, maybe he'll do something stupid, and then I can call him by that. Maybe I'll think up nicknames for this guy instead of working. Yay! Another way to waste time before I get to go home!