I'm OK/You're OK

My Dear Fellows & Dear Princess,

My day started with a text chat with Auslaender. That was good fun. I was sitting at work listening to my 80's playlist and we played the "who sang this" game.

He did very well. He knows his 80's does our Auslaender.

Then Lemon and I had a pretty childish afternoon of it. I'm not sure we are proper business analysts. Let me explain. She is working on a thing that handles applications from people.

"What if they submit two applications at once?" I asked.
"They can't," she replied.
"But - you know - what if they do?"
"They can't," she repeated.
"But it could happen," I persisted. "You could get some dumbarse who submits his application for one thing, and then a week later realises he should put in another application for something else."

Lemon started drawing a matrix. "You can do a new application and a renew of an existing application or a cancel of an application. You can't do a renew and another renew. Or a new application with another new application. Or a cancel with another cancel." 

She drew a little matrix with ticks and crosses on it to show what was allowable. 

"But why can't you do that?" I persisted.

She pointed at the crosses. "Do you not see these crosses?" she replied.

"Yes but..."

"CROSSES!" said Lemon. "DO YOU SEE THESE CROSSES? YOU CAN'T DO IT BECAUSE I SAID SO!"

"But..."

"CROSSES!" 

It devolved into childish name-calling. "I say you can do it. And anyway YOU smell," I defied her.

In the end we resolved our differences. "So you're ok?" said Lemon. I agreed I was. "I'm ok, you're ok," she confirmed.

That set us off talking about all those stupid motivational and self-esteem courses our respective employers have sent us on. Apparently Lemon was sent on a particularly horrific one where they were separated up into groups and told to be completely honest with each other. "Tell the group something about yourself. Completely open up to the group," they were told.

She told me that people talked about their feelings. About the deaths of parents and unresolved issues. About divorce and sadness and heartbreak. 

Lemon was in a pretty good place at the time. "I'm really sorry," she said. "I've just had a baby, I'm really happy." She was pressed on it. "Just tell us what you're thinking right now. Be honest."

She thought about it.

"Well. Right now I'm thinking about the fact that the bloke leading this group is wearing a toupee."

The group was horrified, "You can't say that!"

"But you TOLD me to be honest," Lemon wailed. They cast her out. She wasn't allowed to be honest anymore. She FAILED honesty.

Now it is Friday evening. It has been a fun day. We're watching The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin on Netflix. It's a really lovely film. Just one of those films that makes you happy, because there are good people in the world. I'm enjoying hanging out with them.

Which brings me back to Auslaender who loaned me all the books, back in the 90's. You're ok too, Auslaender. And you sure know your 80's.

S.