It Was Nice While It Lasted

Well, my boss is back from vacation. While I am very grateful to not have to cover the phones after hours, it was very nice not having him around for a couple of weeks. Today was his second day back at work, and he was able to rub me the wrong way a couple of times. The first incident was a plant left over from a funeral on Wednesday. The family didn't want it, but asked that we donate it to their church. The owner tells me to take it up there today. I tell my boss I'm going to take care of this, and his attitude was, "what's the church going to do with this little dish garden?" I told him that it was a nice little plant and they would probably enjoy it in the church office. He gives me the "whatever" attitude, but the owner wants it done, so there's not much my boss can say about it. So I'm in the van heading to church with the plant, and I notice the gas is down to about 1/3 of a tank. The owner has made it known that when the gas gauge dips below half a tank, fill it back up! So I plan to do that when I get back, but my cell phone rings. My boss is calling, he wants me to come back and pick him up. We have a car in the shop, and it's ready. I turn around and pick him up, and when he gets in I ask if he has a company credit card. He wants to know why and I tell him about the gas being low. He looks at the gauge and says, "you've got plenty of gas to get to church and back." I remind him that I was told to fill up in situations like this, and he says, "yeah, in a perfect world." So I just dropped him off at the garage, ran my errand, came back and waited for the day to end. This was the second time he had comments about gassing up the cars. The first time was our errand car; it was down to a quarter-tank, and I put a note on the board that said, "Hyundai needs gas." My boss asked me how much was in the tank, and I told him. He tells me, "You can go to {closest big city} and back on that!" Someone else can deal with the refueling from now on; I'm tired of getting attitude for simply trying to follow company policy.

And, yes, the church was very appreciative and happy to take the plant to liven up the office.