I have spent most of the week trying to balance competing feelings of empathy and sadistic glee.

The Boss and Howdy have been working on a major, urgent and deadline-heavy project which essentially takes up all of Howdy�s time and three quarters of the Boss�s.

It�s the kind of project I hate. It�s fast and lucrative and difficult and frustrating and up until Howdy�s arrival something I would have been running. It�s the kind of project that is challenging and puts your training to work, but which also requires a lot of filing, photocopying, collating and general document management. And it means dropping everything else you�re doing, including lunch breaks and going home on time.

So I am extremely empathetic when I see Howdy running around with a manic expression on her face trying to find an attachment to a document, or trying to find a moment to catch her breath. I have been there. No doubt I will be there again, and possibly very soon.

But at the same time, I�m kind of enjoying it. I�m trying not to enjoy it too much because I know the karma will come back and bite me in the arse and make my next project horrific, but it�s hard to help it on a couple of fronts.

First, after several months of being the busiest person in the office by a long way, it�s nice to have time to get through my stuff while everyone else is being swamped. At least for a few days. But second, and more importantly (which is why I�m wary of that karma thing), I can�t help but conclude that this is exactly what Howdy and her unprofessional sense of entitlement need.

We are not slave drivers around here. For most of the year she�s had the very un-trainee like luxury of working from 9 til 5.15 with a full hour for lunch. And this, unfortunately, only added to her pre-existing sense of entitlement. But over the last couple of weeks she�s been learning that when the project needs it you get a 15 minute fresh air break at 4.30 rather than an hour off at 1, and you get in at 7 or 8 instead of 9 and leave at 7 or 8 instead of 5. Sometimes it�s just necessary. Of course she only got in at 8 one day this week, which means she�s had more late nights that she�d otherwise like because she hasn�t managed to balance out her day.

Of course, because it�s such a whirlwind in the middle of the project, we won�t actually know for a few weeks whether the lessons have been learned. It won�t be until the whole thing is over that it will become apparent whether she�s really up to the job or not.

And by that time I�m likely to be in the middle of my own project, which will likely require me to travel back and forth between two states and be wholly frustrated by a couple of other parties. But at least I know what to expect, what�s required and how to handle it all. And I�m prepared to have it be just that little bit worse because of the flashes of glee I can�t help feeling now. Especially this afternoon when I headed off to lunch at the pub with the girls from the office and Howdy ran back and forth collating and filing documents.