in which the boss gets a liiiittle bit out of hand

Haven't felt like I had the time or energy for posting lately. Well, honestly, because I feel exceedingly boring. Not ME, of course -- I'm fascinating, witty, and wise -- but my life is so ... so ... what is the technical term? Ruttish, perhaps.

Reminds me of a song, must Google this, just hang on ...

Okay, got it in 3 seconds (I LOVE YOU GOOGLE GUYS!!! HOW DID WE EVER LIVE WITHOUT YOU??!!):

From Desmond Dekker and the Aces (huh? don't remember ever hearing the group's name), from I can't remember when, but feels like high school. Year, anybody? (Dare you to out me!)

Get up in the morning
Slaving for bread Sir
So that every mouth can be fed
Ohhhh, oh oh, the Israelites

Yeah, that was a cool song. Who knew I'd be living it 30-odd years later.

So I drag myself out of bed each morning at a slightly different time (vain attempt to prove I'm not in a rut) -- sometimes 7 am, sometimes 7:10, just depends how much sleep I feel I've gotten and, consequently, my level of annoyance at needing to get the morning routine going. This morning it was 7:30, because yesterday I left the house at a decent time and spent a full hour in bloody awful traffic. Thus, I had earned a late departure today which would allow me to skip the usual bottlenecks and fly to work in just 30 minutes.

It was a quiet day with most of the managers out at a seminar, and my roommate home with a sick kid, but the end of the day brought some excitement.

I should preface this story with a mention of my workmate "Ilanit" who has been with the company for a couple months less than I (and I've now been here 6 months), i.e. she's fairly new. But she's firmly established in our medium-sized office as the resident hottie. She's got a cute face, a Julia Roberts smile, and a bodacious Barbie body. Tall, slim, unrealistically voluptuous chest, and she glues on her revealing outfits. As this is Israel, we're used to seeing lots of cleavage and bare midriff, even in the office ... especially now that the weather is so hot. But Ilanit always seems to take it just one step further, with really low-riding pants and very shrunken tops. I do not begrudge her this provocative flaunting of her amazing body. Partly because she's eye candy even for me, but also because I recognize her deeper lack of self-assurance even as she sashays down the corridor flashing her flesh. Just out of university, she's clearly a young beauty that hasn't really learned how to harness that power yet, and she's still pretty overwhelmed by it. Males of all ages have their tongues dragging on the floor when they see her. I observe with interest and empathy.

So today photos from our recent outing were published on our company common drive (a place on our network that any employee can access from their computer), and a link was emailed to us. I looked through them quickly and discovered our CEO (who rarely talks but carries a big, expensive digital camera to every outing and event) had published a lot of very beautiful shots of our trip along with many goddess-worshipping shots of Ilanit. At the pool, soaking wet, in her teeny bikini. Close-up, telephoto angles. And then the money shot: Ilanit, huge wet cleavage, partially submerged in water by the side of the pool, in the midst of eating a popsicle. Totally Sports Illustrated in both quality and tone, but I knew she'd be mortified. The CEO had really stepped over the line with this dirty-old-man behavior. Sure, as a photographer, I completely understand his fascination with the subject -- I also have several shots of her from the trip -- but he had clearly focussed the shot and cropped it to feature her heaving wet bosom, with the bonus of the tip of the popsicle gently touching her mouth. Okay, had he done this in the privacy of his own home, no one would have been the wiser, but he published it for the whole company to see. Shockingly bad judgement. Totally unacceptable from a CEO.

I walked across the hall to find Ilanit gasping in horror at the same pictures, while deleting them from the source as quickly as she could. She was disturbed when she left this evening, feeling violated and humiliated and worried about who might have seen the pictures before she deleted them. I find her response to be quite justified, while my boss (a strong-willed Israeli woman of 45 who learned to deal with Israeli male chauvinism, both in the army and at the office, a long time ago) dismissed the issue as nothing to get bothered about. (Implied: After all, the girl is young and hot; she should expect that kind of response. We should be so lucky.) I have a feeling this may be a painful lesson in sexuality for Ilanit, but probably one that is somewhat overdue. I will update...

Meanwhile, on a related topic (you'll see why) ... your laugh of the day. Oh, go ahead -- watch it a few times; it never gets boring!