I went to lunch with a co-worker I've known for about 10 years. We worked together from 1997-1999, and she just started at the company I worked for a few months ago. We were both remembering how we loved our boss John. We liked him and he liked us, and how rare it's been for both of us since then to have a boss whom we like and likes us.

I hope I get one of these two jobs that are in front of me. The two people I want jobs with like me and I like them. It's not that I don't like my boss now, I just don't like her in the same way I do these two people. There's an empathy missing with my current boss that I have with the other two people. I think it's that I like my boss as a work boss but I'm neutral about her as a person, whereas the two people who are offering me jobs I like both as bosses and as people. It's so hard to explain because it's so intangible.

I know for sure that the new person my boss is reporting to does not get me at all, which so bothers me. I think it's such a post 9/11 feeling for me, but it so doesn't make sense to work for people who don't get you and whom you don't like in and outside of work. Life is way too short for that kind of B.S.

My coworker thinks it is very rare for an employee to really like their boss, and that we were so lucky when we met in 1997 because we both had a boss we respected and liked and who respected and liked us. If only John didn't get sick, I would probably still be working for him. But he did get sick, and I just recently found out he died about three years ago. I knew he had a very decidedly uncertain future, and I guess I was right. It's such a shame because John was so smart and so nice, and the perfect boss in a ton of ways.