ChiefsPlanet - Oh! This makes me so mad! Arrrrrgh!

I had a project interview today. In my business, that means I'm competing against 1 or more other firms, and I'm interviewing with the organization that's going to do the hiring.

I had the interview, and when I came out, a not-uncommon event took place. Sometimes, the client will schedule the interviews back to back, so you'll see the firm that's coming in behind you. In this case, I saw three guys in suits out in the lobby, which generally tells you that they're there for an interview.

Now, most of the time, you don't recognize the other firm, but you at least can do a little kremlinology to see what type of firm they are. And of course, sometimes you recognize them, which is bad for the firm coming out because then the following firm can slant their pitch to try to position themselves against you. It's a moderate to big advantage to be going into a pitch and recognize the firm that's coming out.

So anyway, I'm walking out, and I don't recognize these people at first glance, so I'm thinking about other things. I pass about three feet from one guy who's standing, and he smiles at me and says hi. Now, even though they're competitors and I want to crush them under my heel, I'm a friendly guy, so I smile and say hi back.

And then it happened. Two of the guys were standing, and one figure was sitting, kind of hunched over, eating a live, small, screaming mammal. That should have been a clue.

All of a sudden, the misshapen, freakish head swings up, having heard my voice. A forked tongue flicked out, and good people everywhere gasped and winced. It was my psychopathic, dishonest, unethical, lying, cheating former boss.* The living argument for legalized murder skulks around in Arizona now, but he occasionally slimes his way up to Denver to lie to clients and do marketing pitches in which he conceals the fact that all of the senior people in his firm have left and would like to film his beating on youtube.

I just kept walking. I have not uttered a word to that living fecesface in nearly a decade, and haven't had my eyes poisoned by his visual bile in the same amount of time. No reason to break the streak.

As I walked, though, I realized that the pustulent boil on the reputation of humanity may have thought that I said hi to him, rather than to the latest innocent employee that he is lying to and stealing from. Given the way his vomit-filled pinhead swung up, I suspect that he didn't notice the other guy say hello to me, but recognized my voice when I said hi back. I had to fight the urge to go back and announce that I did NOT say hi to him, and that I refuse to acknowledge the existence of that pathetic halitosis on the breath of the world. However, to do so, I would have to actually speak to the psychopathic little Napoleonic Mussolini wannabe, and that was out of the question.

Now I'm sitting here, and the tumor probably thinks I said hi to him, but I didn't. I absolutely did not say hi to that festering sore of megalomania. I did not, and I want to make that completely clear to everyone.

Maybe I should send an e-mail to an employee of the Venereal-Disease-would-have-been-better-leaking-out-of-his-mother-than-him-being-born thief to confirm that I did not say hi to him. I really don't want anyone to think that I would lower myself to do something like that.

Dammit! Where are insane homeless people with knives when you need them?

Even worse, his latest crew (at least the fifth generation of employees in the past ten years) went into the interview right after me, so they walked in with a big advantage. I can only hope that it freaked him out enough that he did something unprofessional enough that the client was offput by him, because I know he tried to take some shots at my company (despite the fact that his company has been closed down, under criminal investigation, been caught cheating a client, been caught cheating on a proposal, and had a 150 percent turnover in senior staff and a 500 percent turnover in staff over the past decade since I left, while my company has thrived).

I don't know how I didn't recognize the guy. All the clues were there - the birds had stopped singing, I was hearing a slight hiss, a nun outside was prostrate - how did I miss the signs?

I really, really dislike that lying thief.

*Pejorative adjectives truncated for continuity, but there are many, many more that should be used to ensure complete accuracy.