When perfect doesn't matter

The meeting I was so worried about Monday morning? I aced it. The client literally said, "This is perfect."

My boss wasn't in attendance.

He's been there for each petty recitation of every typo I made on the manuscript, for the heavy sighing because I used Cambria when a san serif type would be preferable to ... someone. Our Drama Queen Account Executive has been acting as though the margins and font of my copy deck matter mightily when, in reality, a production artist is just going to convert it to HTML anyway.

So after the meeting I asked him why he wasn't there. He shrugged and said, "I know you present well."

I won't go into the permutations of all the office politics, but we had another round of layoffs a week ago today and he's working on our performance evaluations. I told him I was confused and nervous about the way things are being handled ... that anyone would. But he acted as though I was just being a hysterical female. OK. So be it.

If the work, the content, the words, we present to our client matters, I was "perfect." If being able to negotiate the complex office politics are more important, then I'm in trouble. I have to believe that pleasing the client means more than pleasing the Drama Queen. I have to believe that, or I'll start screaming at the unfairness of it all.