For those who dabble in dream interpretation...

Last night I had an odd dream, highlighted by the fact that I remember a large part of it in great detail.

Some of it I can understand why it's there, but for any who are good at dream interpretation, I'd love to hear what this whole thing signifies.

First, a quick piece of background information: about a month ago, a dear friend of mine named Ivan, who is my acting coach, closed his acting school. Now the dream begins...

In my dream, Ivan had purchased a fairly large house and was converting it to a gymnasium. The house had a Spanish villa /Mediterranean look to it, with a winding paved stone driveway and walkway, lush plants with misters, Spanish tile roof, etc. I remember walking through the home, where there were a handful of what I must presume to be former students of his working on preparing the home/gym for the grand opening.

I walked up to Ivan and asked if he a list of personal trainers that he could mail and offer them incentives to train their clients at his gym. He said he did not and I offered to get that for him. I then began discussing the advertising/marketing plan for his new gym, and pointed out that he should focus on the benefits his place offers that other gyms can't.

"For example," I said, "you have a kitchen. You should point out people can prepare their post workout meals right here without having to rush home. Get your protein and carbs immediately after your workout." There were numerous nods of approval from the others. Ivan seemed excited at the idea, sitting at a small desk he quickly took notes.

"You should also emphasize the more personal feel here as opposed to the huge, uncaring corporate feel you get at those big chain gyms."

On my way out, I strolled around the pool, where there were half a dozen or so swimsuit clad individuals, male and female, and of course all of them with phenomenal physiques. From there I left Ivan's new endeavor and returned to a small, cramped and rather untidy apartment that I must assume was mine (think of a stereotypical slum neighborhood apartment and you'd have it.) And then, I woke up.

Boring and baffling is all I can say...

BUSTED !

There's this guy here at the office who was supposed to be a deity when it came to tax work; before he started working here, I saw him occasionally when he came in to do consulting work; he always appeared to be pretty competent.

Then he joined the firm, and I got to work with him on a daily basis.

Slowly, that image of superior intellect and near invincible work habits began to deteriorate. Lately, it seems, he would frequently come rushing back and retrieve work from the outgoing mail bin at the last second, making excuses about how he overlooked several million dollars here or there because of something the client had failed to divulge. Of course, we grunts in the trenches nodded in understanding, but we always harbored suspicions that he was simply screwing up and blaming the clients.

This last Wednesday he gave me a return to send to the client for signatures. I performed all the normal duties and sent the email with attachments to the client. (Technically I'm the network admin, but I help out with some clerical duties when I can.) This morning he came to me and asked if I had sent the email.

"Yep," I answered. "Went out about 15 minutes after you gave it to me."
"Oh, " he said. "We'll need to resend it - this morning the client changed a bunch of numbers."
"OK," I said. "Let me know when it's ready."

One of the other grunts IM'd me.

"Funny how it's always his clients that change the numbers," he messaged.

"Bull," I IM'd him back. "He missed something and now he's trying to cover his ass."
Later, I received the corrected file and sent a second email to the client, mumbling under my breath about how incompetence can be so fiscally rewarding.

Hours later I get an email from the client, asking why I've sent the documents again and asking what to do.

BUSTED !

Me and my co-worker had a good laugh over the fact that we were both right on our call. The devil in me wanted to write back to the client and say something about how he is receiving this email as a result of the changes he provided this morning, but I decided to be nice.

Don't ya just love it when you make a situational assessment and learn you nailed it right on the head?

I give myself a virtual high five... I rock...