STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Wow, Nylabelle, you're a better woman than I am. I would have lost it, right there in front of everyone.

Once I was a LAW CLERK at a firm that I had worked at in undergrad (as a file clerk - basically an office bitch) - I'd gone back during law school because the experience was really good, the money was really good, and my old boss would no longer be my boss. As a law clerk I answered to the partners, not the silly office manager guy. Well he didn't like that one bit. We went back and forth with this mini-power struggle (he tried to tell me what to do, I told him I had other important work to be done) and one day it culminated in him telling me to clean the kitchen!!! The runner at the firm cleaned the kitchen and if the runner wasn't there or whatever, it fell on the office manager. He told me to do it.

We had this HUGE knock down, drag out in his office and it ended very, very badly. I basically told him where he could shove it and informed him that if he ever told me to do something like that again, I'd tell the partners what their very highly paid and highly billed-out law clerk was being asked to do. That shut him up but at the cost of a friendship. Luckily he wasn't anyone important there so I didn't mind burning that bridge. But still, it sucked.

I bet the person who asked you to make coffee was a man wasn't it? (This is just a stab in the dark based on my own office experience.) I'm so sorry that happened. Sounds like you handled it perfectly though. I would say, under no circumstances, should you ever make coffee for those cheeseheads. The second you do it, you'll do it the rest of the time you're there. Asswipes. I like the spitting in coffee idea too.