A few years back I was the copywriter on a team that was working on an ad campaign for a huge national organization. We were in a meeting one day with one of the higher-ups in the organization—the Director of Marketing, I think it was. In any case, he was high enough up to fire us if he wanted to, and he was talking like he wanted to. He was chewing us up one side and down the other.
He took a quick bathroom break, leaving us at the table to give each other significant, raised-eyebrow looks.
When he came back to the table, the tirade picked up where it had left off. But from where I was sitting, I could see the man’s shoes. Black wingtips, glistening with drops of overspray from his peeing.
I felt ever so much better. Nothing he could say could hurt me. I wasn’t the one who had peed on my shoes.