As we said the other day, we human beings tend to react most forcibly when confronted by threats that are direct and personal.  So while it's easy to maintain our stoic Zen composure when confronted by long hold times on the telephone or traffic delays, it's another thing when our boss decides for whatever reason that today would be a good day to start an argument, and when we resist getting pulled into whatever it was that he was not happy with today, he brings up his impression of some event from at least two years ago and throws that at us to see if that gets a rise out of us.

It did.  But fortunately, before our sympathetic nervous system took over and we lashed back, we were saved by the bell - literally.  Our cell phone went off, and the boss said, "Fine, go take that call," which we did, walking out of his office and the provocation that he left out there.  It was a robo-sales call but we listened to it long enough to walk away from the situation and regather our composure before getting on with the rest of the day.  The boss sulked in his office for the rest of the afternoon.

God, we can't wait until retirement, if for no other reason than to get out of this toxic environment.