We all know the cliche “When life gives you lemons!”. I don’t really care for cliches in general, but they are quick and easy, and do the trick most of the time, so really, who cares? Like Kevin Nealon’s joke: “Eh, What are you gonna do?”
But, I have to say: I’ll tell ya what I don’t do: Make tasty lemonade. I get the meaning behind the cliche. Make the most of what you have. Fine. Then just say that and I will. Or at least, I will ponder the possibility. If The Bachelor isn’t on. But not with your cruddy leftovers, thank you very much. I have quite enough on my plate already.
I’ve worked out a way to deal with this kind of passive agressive craigslisting of crap work. I’ll happily make your lemonade. But if I were you, I wouldn’t drink it. There is likely some pepper in there. Maybe some oatmeal. I don’t DO lemonade.
For instance, a boss I had once asked me to perform some task I felt was, well, beneath me. And when I say beneath me, I mean that I just didn’t want to do it. Plain and simple. At least I’m honest. So I took to this task with the idea that if I made a considerably bad lemonade, I wouldn’t be at fault refusing to make lemonade altogether, but perhaps, the next time, he might not ask me to make lemonade at all.
And crap lemonade I thought I made. I was asked to create “cheat sheets” for incoming candidates. So I looked through the CVs, found the worst qualities of each and made my notes. These included directives to my boss to ask questions such as “Where does the Surf Club president of Columbia surf of the coast of Manhattan? East or Hudson River?” and “Is footbagging a douchey term for hackey sack?” [insert "uppity" for "douchey"] and “It says on your CV that your interests include spicy foods. Please elaborate.”
While I like to think my boss generally appreciates my sense of humor, he appreciates some crap lemonade as well. I will say though, he’s never asked for seconds.
