The peon of my peon...

After a pretty rough day, which ended with me having to lecture the president about the necessity of having a defined role and purpose before we recruited people and just not recruiting random people and then think of what to do with them, I feel pretty exhausted.

The topic arose since a new person was pretty recently recruited into my department, so far he seems smart, has experience and is a reasonable person, but I was against the recruitment from the beginning. Not because of any issues with him, his experience or personality, more due to the lack of value versus benefit of recruiting another person into my department. In the end I relented and agreed to have him hired under the condition that I didn't have to look after him and train him, so he is reporting to one of my team members.

Just recently in a conversation with Luke from my former company, I explained the situation to him and the conversation went something like this, as always, please feel free to act out the scene with a pet, colleague or casual sex partner:

Mr. Salaryman: So he's basically reporting to one of my peons.

Luke: Oh, so you're not his direct boss?

Mr. Salaryman: Yeah, that's right.

Luke: (Triumphantly) So that means that he's your grand-peon!

"Grand-peon". Let that new word sink in a bit. This one needs to get in the dictionaries ASAP!