A long time ago, at a newspaper far away, I was transferred from a job I really liked to a job I truly didn’t want (though I was happy to still have a job), helping out on a desk that found itself short-handed due to a wave of corporate buy-outs.
I guess I did OK. My new editor said he appreciated that I was professional enough not to act out by messing up.
When I gave him a quizzical look, he explained, “It’s what you do when your mother makes you wash the dishes, and you really don’t want to, so you ‘accidentally’ break something in hopes that she won’t make you do it again.