Like cats and dogs

I had never had pets before, but I did have bosses. Many bosses. At work I have usually had more bosses than employees. I have also been a boss but, regardless of how far I grew professionally, I still had more bosses above me than subordinates below. It was a constant.

But let's start from the beginning. I had been working at the time for five years in a renewable energy engineering multinational company in Russia.

I liked my life in Moscow. The cultural activity, the Russian classical music that I am passionate about, from Tchaikovsky to Shoshtakovich, all the way to Rachmaninov. Ballet, opera, theater. And the Russian realist novel, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky. And Bulgakov.

Life is tough, but people are honest and straightforward, in general. If they open their door to you, they are as cordial as we can be in Southern Europe, but they also show you their indifference or they "bark" their anger in your face, without false political corrections. A hard and point-blank, cold-blood honesty.

My main job was to locate projects for the Kyoto Protocol. Easy, right? It was just about locating projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, applying engineering solutions, and the project promoters and the Russian state would receive generous financial compensation for the reductions. Who wouldn't agree? Ah, but ... we were in Russia. Another logic applies there. And the energy business is a sensitive state-controlled matter.

On the other hand, my company's decision was more political than economic. Let's say, it was a show off propaganda issue. Or, from another point of view, part of the Board of Directors wanted to slowly expand to other areas such as Russia, and the other part was against it and clogging up the works. And there I was, just in the middle ... getting slapped on both cheeks from both sides.

In the middle, in Russia, and by myself. Yes, because I was completely alone in Moscow. The company had 80,000 employees worldwide, of which in Russia ... one! Me!

And a lot of chiefs, since I gave service to six different companies within the group. And they all acted as though my job was as easy to do in Russia as If I were in the European Union.

I had to supply taxi receipts (when there were virtually no taxis in Russia but private cars that you negotiated with on the street yourself!), procedural permission forms at which Russian officials laughed at and from which company executives fled, to later decline my follow-up calls... Frustrating!

It would have been an easier task for me to arrange for Trump to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, or the Peace Nobel, or even in Literature. Although on second thought, the latter was already granted to Bob Dylan. WTF? Whatever!

In the end, at least all of those bosses were 4,600 kilometres away from me.

And then... a serious illness forced me to return home. Four years on dialysis, a spare kidney, and a whole new life. From scratch! Once more.

And again alone. Lonelier than ever, because I was home alone now, even though the emotional and psychological scars from my adventure disabled and blocked my empathy and social skills.

Pressure, stress and anxiety, bad emotional handling of problems on my behalf, etc. Ah! And the mobbing by my company, which I forgot.

Briefly, alone again, I rejected even my own friends. I had got used to it and just wanted to remain alone. During dialysis sessions I had a lot of people that I tried to avoid engaging in conversation or interacting with, but I preferred to be alone and victimize myself, living in self-pity. I could still go deeper and deeper into the black hole.

One day, however, I woke up earlier than I used to in recent months, with the same lack of motivation as usual, but with an idea popping into my head. I got in the car and drove to the nearest kennel.

I immediately fell in love with Тиша (Tisha, _quiet_), a cinnamon white Labrador retriever who could speak with her (then) sad eyes.

Soon afterwards, a beautiful black and white furry ball also arrived to keep us company; a friend had found him abandoned on the streets, the kitten Boni.

While Tisha is calm and gentle, Boni is nervous and playful. If one loves to walk outside and sniff everything on the street, the other leaves no uncharted corner at home. One meows nonstop since the very moment I press snooze on the alarm in the early morning. He won't let me oversleep.

The other one insistently tells me when worktime is over and the time for a walk is due.

Now I work without much pay (yet!) At home, creating, studying, writing, and my life is finally making sense . It's starting to have a purpose again.

Again. And I have two bosses who watch me, train me and monitor my daily work pace. No, they are much more than mere bosses; They are sergeants who bring discipline back to my life.

They have helped me adjust and regulate my broken internal clock, so that I can rebuild a life program that will allow me to internalize a work discipline and healthy life habits that I so badly needed to recover my life. And, beyond my bosses, they are also my dearest and loving friends.