Today I Said No...

...and true to the wisdom I learned on Ehell, it is a complete sentence.

Some background:

At work, we are dreadfully short-staffed. So people with my job title were paired with a "buddy," someone who would be assigned a limited amount of the work we do, in the hopes that they'd learn enough to help the rest of us out. For the most part, it's worked out okay; my buddy is a reasonably intelligent person and we get along fine.

(And a qualifier here: I get along well with pretty much everyone I work with. There are days, however, when enough's enough. And today was it.)

So, I was helping one of my co-workers with a new part of the computer system when L shows up. L is not my assigned buddy, but I don't mind helping her when I have the time. I didn't have the time today (remember, we're short-staffed.) And I told L "Hey, isn't M your buddy?"

L says, "But M is busy."

I told her--gently, I hope: "L, I'm busy too."

I don't know whether L liked being told no. But the reality is, I think I'll have to start saying it when I need to---not because I want to be "the mean bitchy secretary" but because I have work to do that I can't do if I'm off helping people who should be trying to help themselves first. And at the end of the road, if I don't get my work done, I'm not doing my job.

So..yeah. "No" is a complete sentence. Who knew? :)