Everyone wants to be on good terms with their boss, but is it possible to make too much of an effort to make your boss like you? In my case, yes, it’s very possible, and it happened to me. Last week, I called my boss “the big cheese”, like it was a normal thing to do or something.
I hate to relive the experience, but it must be said. On Monday morning, I wanted to come off friendly in our semi-hostile corporate setting, but I ended up calling my boss something that I actually haven’t heard anyone say out loud before the very moment it exited my mouth.
The first thing I did when I walked into the office was say, “Hey, it’s The Big Cheese!” while simultaneously doing finger guns at my boss. Needless to say, everyone in my office was silent, but I still had to work for the rest of the day, knowing that everyone had heard what I just said.
I don’t think I’ll ever recover from this.
“The big cheese”? What does that even mean? It sounds derogatory. Maybe it would make sense as a term of veneration if we were a society of mice, but we’re a society of humans, and no one should say these weird and fucked up words out loud.
Ultimately, the pain of the embarrassment weighed so heavily on me that, by lunch, I fake coughed a lot and then left for the rest of the day because I was “coming down with something”.
It was a pretty seamless plan, but on the way out I saw my boss again, and because I was thinking so hard about what happened earlier, I said, “See you tomorrow, Big Cheese!” without thinking.
Talk about a Freudian slip! I literally want to die.
I’m not sure if I have the strength to ever look at my boss again. I’ve been looking at job opportunities since I got home from work, and hopefully I can find something that starts tomorrow. I might actually become a barista despite having no real experience and evidently poor social skills.
This experience taught me that no one should ever try to call their boss a nickname, no matter how endearing it is. May this be a cautionary tale to everyone who has thought about calling their boss “the big cheese”. It’s probably not a huge group of people, but still.
Also, if anyone wants to teach me how to make a flat white, please get in contact!
