When all else fails, communicate.

So, I've been stewing for awhile. Today while I was filing an answer for SemperFi, he came and asked me a question, then as he left my desk remarked, "Don't forget to file the [thing]."

Really? I finished filing the answer, faxed the discovery to opposing counsel, worked on another task or five, then found a moment when he was off the phone and went in to talk to him.

Me: Are you unhappy with my work?

Him: (big saucer eyes) No! I'm very happy with your work!

Me: It was a little embarrassing when you told me not to forget to file the [thing] where anybody could hear you.

Him: I wasn't trying to embarrass you. I was trying to be helpful. You didn't file it yesterday, and I wanted to make sure you filed it today, so I put a sticky-note on it.

Then he shared with me what the next three weeks of his life are going to be like: an endless round of mediations and depositions, some of the latter out of town, and other tasks that fall under his purview because he's so darn good at what he does. [I have minimal sympathy regarding the mediations and depositions, because he schedules his own, but I do have sympathy for how the other tasks only add to the stress.]

He listened to me, really listened, so it was easy to ask if there was anything I could do to lighten the load, and there's not. Then he said, "You have a lot to do, and you do it well, and if I get up in your [stuff], just tell me to get out of your [stuff]." He acknowledged that he's guilty of micro-managing, and I agreed that there was a lot more of it recently, but now I know why. There are five people in various functions who are out of the office indefinitely due to health reasons or training, which adds significantly to the load the rest of us are carrying.

I resumed my tasks with a much lighter heart (and Middlest could see the difference when I walked in the door tonight). Since I'm not willing to say [stuff] unless someone throws up on me accidentally, I came up with a solution. Pulled up a Word document and started typing and tweaking. When I was done, I printed it off and ran it around the corner to our paralegal. She cracked up. So I took it into his office and said, "Wanna have a little laugh?" He answered that he would like to hear something funny. I showed him the printout, in 120pt type with a 150pt emoji:

You're doing it again. :(

He guffawed, said it was great, and that when necessary, I'm to pull it out of my drawer and wave it at him. Mission accomplished.