"Have you lost your f**king mind?" The voice said as it roared out of the office. I was 5 minutes early for my meeting with Superintendent Z. It was clear that something was wrong.

"Well, answer me, a**hole", the rant continued. And I recognized the voice of the superintendent as I wisely stayed away from the view of the doorway. "F**king dumbass. I mean really, you must be the worst damn employee on any golf course, anywhere". Not mincing any words here, clearly (and these are actual quotes).

"I told you and I've told you plenty of times before, that when you do that, it f**ks up the whole operation", louder this time. Words slashing through the air like verticut blades thrown like weapons in some kind of Turfhead Kung Fu movie. 

I stood there for another 15 minutes. Not really wanting to move, but also realizing that if this kept on, there might actually be blood. Only one voice carried the conversation with perhaps a mumble coming from the asschewee. A word maybe. A sentence, never. So finally I thought it best to walk back outside and wait for the ash of the eruption to fall inside whilst staying in the cool morning outside air. It didn't matter much. I could still hear the chewing of the fescue ass through the walls of the shop. Volcanos make a lot of noise.

A few moments later I was joined by the equipment manager and we didn't share any words. It was almost as, if we did, the door would burst open and the Tasmanian Super would whirl through the door, severing our limbs. Nope. Best to just listen. Another 6 minutes by my watch and the door opened and a red faced young man flew out, jumped on a cart and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

"Wilber, is that you out there?", Super Z barked. I answered something to the effect of a frog voice mating with a goat and was subsequently invited into the office. Great. Perhaps the move, I debated in my head, would be to just walk to the truck feigning sickness and call proclaiming I was on my way to the ER. Nope. Too late. Into the office I strode. Super Z was snorting a face-full of coffee and just took a moment and looked at me. 

"When you were growing grass, did you ever kill any assistant supers?", he asked and didn't wait for the answer as he went on to tell me about the galactic stupidity of his current Number One. Spock, he may not be. But at the same time, Super Z really isn't a Kirk. From my vantage point of the guy just beaming in, this Enterprise is kind of doomed.

Super Z and I had our chalk talk over his recent soil tests. It wasn't a bad meeting. It wasn't great, either. I felt myself contracted and sort of waiting for the shoe to fall. And it was in the moment that I realized that my sensors never did actually hear what the sin was that caused today's explosion. And guess what? I wasn't going to ask.

As I was leaving the property, the assistant flagged me down. He began to apologize for what I had heard and told me he was really embarrassed. I couldn't resist asking what caused the uproar and the answer was pretty interesting. Essentially, Mr. Assistant was spraying greens and had to go out of the dictated spray order, because one of the section guys was slow getting his first two greens mowed. Meant a little extra travel time to "back and forth" a bit to spray greens that were mowed. And the assistant didn't want to throw the section guy under the bus, so he took the abuse when something seemed out of order to Super Z.

I wanted to turn around and take the young squire and walk into the guy's office and mediate the whole thing. I mean really. What an unfortunate waste of energy. A little voice in my head reminded me that I don't work at Golf Club Z every day, so there could be some sides of the story yet untold. So the incident became blog fodder for me and Kirk and Spock can work out their "issues". 

As an assistant super, I got yelled at. It happened. And as a super, I yelled. It happened. Of course in each case, the superintendent was always right. Right? Not always. And we all know that. A little maturity on my part came with the realization that if I was going to be a good leader, I had to find a way to correct while being under control. Often that meant letting myself cool down for a period of time. And suddenly I had followers who respected me, but enjoyed my leadings and even my corrections.

So here is my question to you: Are you, when things don't go your way, a Turfhead Terrorist Monkey? And if you might be, do your explosions happen in a way that everyone would rather keep you calm than tell you the truth? Can you handle the truth? Can you mostly never hear yourself say, "I'm sorry, I was wrong"? 

If the questions above prompt a "yes", perhaps the answers as to why things really don't get done the way you want them to be done are more obvious than you thought. Yes, yes, yes, I know...it wasn't that way back in the day. Embrace the fact that we live in a different world today. Because that fact couldn't be more obvious.