Unvitation

I had an unvitation to lunch today and it pissed me off, as unvitations do. You've all had unvitations, right? It's an invitation that is clearly not genuine and is after the fact and when it's made you're then told why you probably don't want to go anyway? Unvitation.

R actually told me the word. I called him to whine about it and he said I was not invited, I was unvited. Turns out Seinfeld coined it, but I had long forgotten. Thanks, R for putting a word to how I felt!

Anyway, here's the scenario. I went dutifully into work, even with the ice day, but planned on staying only a few hours. I was told by the BB (Big Boss) soon after arriving what a godsend the B (Bitch -- his secretary) had been in coming in today. Only one other attorney was there. The BB said the phone had been ringing off the hook and the B was handling things well. He was so grateful and thankful.

He came in later and said he planned to pay the B extra for coming in today. She was such a godsend. And it wasn't fair that she came in and none of the other staff did.

Ahem.

"Oh, and you'll get extra compensation too."

So I worked in my office, taking care of a few things here and there. The entire time that I was there the phone rang once. The entire time that I was there, the BB and the B had a conversation about everything but work. So, whatever, I'm sure the phone was ringing earlier, although the BB is prone to exaggeration. Godsend my ass.

So it gets to be around noon. The BB comes into my office and tells me that he's going to take the B to lunch at a really nice restaurant near the office. "I'm going to take her to lunch. She's been such a godsend today. I don't know what I'd have done without her. I'm taking her to a nice lunch."

"That's a good idea," I said.

"I just think I owe her a nice lunch," he said.

"Sounds good," I said, when the plan and the reasoning behind it was repeated to me for the third and fourth time.

"How long are you staying?" he said to me. I told him I'd stay long enough to work the mail and make up a deposit. He said he could take care of the deposit and I quickly said, "Great! I'll wrap up now then."

Pause. Long pause.

"Well, I guess you could come along if you want, if you think your trunk full of groceries will be okay," he said.

"I think I'll just go on home. I want to check and see if we have power," I said.

Unvitation.

Now the thing to remember is that had I received a bonafide invitation rather than an unvitation, I would have tried to find a way to avoid eating out with these two people. I probably would have pulled the "trunk full of groceries" card. After all, who wants to have lunch with the BB and the supreme B. Even if the restaurant is nice. The last time I spent any time with them away from the office, this question was posed (by the BB) as we were driving through a neighborhood of nice but modest, well-kept homes on our way to have powers of attorney signed: "Don't you sometimes wish you had foregone the big house and all of the trappings and just lived more simply like these folks here?"

I don't know who the hell he thought he was talking to. Clearly he wasn't referring to my nice but modest, somewhat well-kept home, definitely free of trappings. Anyway, you get the idea of what lunch would have been like. He and the B live in the same upscale area. I live in (gasp!) the older, central part of the city.

And I hate phonies. And unvitations.

Venting time is now over. Blogs are a godsend.