Relating Einstein and Star Trek to work

I am well into my second career and am starting to see an ugly trend in managers. It seems that time is not what it used to be, for example meetings never start on time, lunch time is no longer anywhere near noon. Worst of all, starting at 7:00AM and working till 3:30PM with half an hour for lunch is some how less than 7.5 hours when you do the math is seems to equal 8.

But how can you complain when a manager starts at 9:30 and then departs for their first meeting at 9:45, even though it started at 9:30? The meetings continue right up until 6:00PM at which point they come looking for you to start working on all the stuff that they and the other members of the TKN (That Know Nothing) committee dreamt up throughout the day. Then the manager sends the e-mail you, even though you have already left, you know the one… I need this on my desk first thing in the morning. The fact that whatever “this” is will take at least 3 days is not relevant to them or you.

I have a couple of theories on this. (as I always do).
In my first theory of relevancy, E = MC² , E is energy sucked from my being by living through work where M is management providing twice as much C, Crap or Chaos, as a human should be able to withstand. Relevancy determines just how relevant you are to them, although it could also have to do with how many of their relatives work at the company; then it could be called the theory of relativity, but that one was taken.

My second Theory is the Star Ship Commander Theory. It’s great that managers have all of this free time to be at work (not actually working, just being there) because they are divorced / separated / never married or just don’t care about the other people in their personal lives, but do they have to take every person at work down with them? I blame Star Trek for this mind set. Everyone saw the adventures of Captain James T. and said “Hey look everyone on the starship is at his beck and call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week… that’s what I want when I grow up.” When all of the little children became adults, they never really grew up; they were greatly disappointed that there were no Starships. (Or Green skinned aliens to boink and then run off to the planet with the blue skinned aliens for seconds.) Today’s mangers, having been influenced by Star Trek, are still determined to have all “their” people at their beck and call 24 /7.

How do I know this to be true?
1.) If you start 5 minutes before your manager and finish 5 minutes after they leave they will never complain about you not being there.
2.) If you ask them about Star Trek they will get a very disappointed look in their eyes and not want to talk about it.

So when your shift is done, look them in the eye and say “The Enterprise is in dry dock, Commander. See you tomorrow.”