A big part of my job is managing people. Not in terms of being their manager, but in terms of being their baby-sitter. I have to hold hands and reassure and wipe noses and generally ease the transition to a new way of doing business.

I’m surprisingly good at it, considering what a misanthrope I am and how much People annoy me. When I’m on the clock and thus motivated to help, I can be amazingly patient with someone I would normally drop-kick across the street just for the sheer entertainment of watching them bounce. I am as amazed as anyone at what a calming and reassuring influence I can be with people who are wigging out about a new way of doing things. I somehow tap into a previously-unknown reserve of extraordinary patience and sympathy and reassuringly soothing tone, and somehow I make it all “okay.”

But.

Here in Fairbanks, I may have met my match. This guy up here is the biggest friggin’ crybaby I’ve ever seen. He complains. And bitches. And complains. And bitches some more. And no matter what I show him, no matter what needs to be done, no matter what topic we’re discussing, he somehow manages to bring it back to the software he won’t be using anymore. He has an almost erotic attachment to it, and I’m getting pretty damned tired of hearing how great the old software was when he’s not going to be using anymore. Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch.

It’s said that when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. I have found that I have more tools at my disposal than I thought and I can somehow finesse these situations. But this guy… This guy…

Where’s my fucking hammer?