With the cancellation of the Emergency Meeting due to the failed quorum count, and the impending arrival of the Amazon, the Chair and I decided it would be a good time to have a Most Improved Person mid-term review.
You might say that as the prize is awarded in September, we should have had our mid-term review in March, but if we were the sort of people who managed to do everything we ought to do when we should, we wouldn't be competing with each other for a Most Improved Person award.
The Amazon wins most years. I won the year I started pirate school. You might have thought my graduating would have given me the award, but I didn't finish in the top 10% of the class and the Amazon went through a home renovation without losing her boyfriend.
"We were talking," the Chair told me before the Amazon arrived, "and for you to win this year, you're going to need a show-stopper."
I shrugged. Since the Chair has never won, I'd probably have given it to him if he filed his taxes on time. Of course, the Amazon isn't going to let it go to one of us that easily.
And that's what she told us when she arrived. Before she sat down she announced, "I've got Most Improved Person in the bag."
She asked if we wanted to know why and we said we did.
"I've hired a life coach. We met for the first time today and I've already got a set of objectives."
"We're going to need to see those objectives," I said.
"What are they?" asked the Chair.
"I don't remember," she said. "I think one was that I need to not be so swayed by what other people think, I need to be more self-directed."
"You need to be more self-directed? That would be like me saying, I need to eat more Mars bars," I said.
"Or do you mean it would be like you saying you need to know how to tell people 'you are wrong!'" she said to me.
"You are wrong," I said, "okay, maybe it would be like that."
The Amazon then promised to bring her objectives to our next meeting and we moved on to quizzing the Chair about the progress we'll need to see from him. This is always the fun part of the mid-term review.
