The Other CEO cont’d

The home CEO has its own operating guidelines. Try to learn them.

• Your showing up late for supper is just another event at the end of a hectic day.
• Don’t look for sympathy unless you texted, you’d be late. Even then don’t look for it.
• The home CEO needs to have a reservoir of goodwill available at all times. Love got you there, goodwill keeps you there.
• The office CEO must top off the goodwill reservoir as needed. The home CO must be able to access manicures, pedicures, hair stylists shopping, spas and health clubs as needed.
• The home CEO will be entitled to an auxiliary reservoir after they nurse the office CEO through a bout of the flu. Nursing the offspring does not require an auxiliary tank as they typically heal faster.
• The home CEO is always confident in their role, give them respect. The dog knows.
• There can only be one boss at home. There is no one who can fill the position if they quit. The fear of a strike is real. The home CEO knows this and will play that card as needed.
• The office CEO will never see a beautiful au pair in the castle. The home CEO knows that the au pair didn’t take the job posted in a youth hostel in Munich so she could come to the United States and change diapers.
• The home CEO shows alpha male dominance when dealing with tradesmen. The home CEO knows they are all chauvinists. They never take their boots off and they don’t care about their plumber’s cracks. The home CEO tells them there is no need to check with the office CEO whether or not to accept their bid.
• The home CO is able to multitask before the word was invented by some computer geek he thinks he can message and play video games at the same time. The home CEOP can run multiple heavy machines each with elaborate electronic codes while talking on the phone and texting at the same time.
• The home CEO’s talents include superior driving skills, whether it’s the chicane at the indoor garage at Nordstrom’s, the middle school parking lot full of short shrieking spectators carrying knapsacks or the last parking space at Whole Foods during the holidays while remembering to mail birthday cards to distant family members of the office CEO most of whom never acknowledge receiving them.
• Home CEOs have the panache to dress appropriately for official functions. Everyone will check out what the home CEO is wearing from head to toe. There are two reasons for this: one to guess how much everything costs, the other to see if anything has been worn at an earlier event. That the first looks expensive and the second has never happened makes a boring evening a little less painful for the home CEO.
• Home CEOs build networks with other home CEOs who have their own castles. These networks are essential and are constantly monitored by lengthy phone calls and require prodigious memory capacity to store the intelligence gained. The intelligence is used to analyze scandals or news of a sale.
• The home CEO must understand that the office CEO only feigns interest in news from the network. Capable of only one task at a time, the office CEO can’t even keep all the names of the network in his head.
• The home CEO is strong in banning messaging and gaming devices from the dinner table. There will be strong disapproval if a messaging device interrupts a night out.
• The home CO has legal immunity from a charge of physical assault when they awaken to find the office CEO texting under the covers at 3 a.m.
• The home CEO must be tolerant of the immature behavior of all her charges. Being a slob is a trait of all the male occupants of the castle. These traits range from leaving dirty socks on the floor, potato chips in the sofa cushions, toilet seats left up, to letting the dog on the furniture.
• The home CEO knows that her tantrums only have a short term effect on her charges. They cower in fear that this time the home CEO really means it, but they have that indomitable male optimist’s dream–along with a hang-dog look–that the anger will melt in time. The home CEO’s response is to insist her goodwill reservoir be topped off to which no one will dare object. The home CEO knows the culprit’s behavior will never change so she might as well replenish her shoe closet inventory.