Our boss, that is. He’s out back riding that old tire hanging down from the thickest branch in the tallest tree in the parking lot. To and fro, back and forth, he’s got that thing going like there’s no tomorrow. And all because Marc Anthony postponed his tour.

He’s been doing that a lot lately. Every time some bad news comes down the concert industry pipeline he heads towards that tree, climbs aboard the tire and starts pumping his legs until that old rubber donut is moving like a hypnotist’s watch. Up and down, up and down, sometimes he’s out there all day and all night as the rope strains against his weight and the air rushing through the tire’s center hole whines like Courtney Love in a room full of reporters.

It didn’t start out like this. When he first hung the tire from the tree he told us it was going to be a morale booster. “Every time a salesman lands a big account, every time the data scientists add new dates for Gloria Estefan or Jimmy Buffett, every time someone signs up for a Pollstar Premium account, this tire is here for you,” he told us. “So climb onboard and reach for the sky! Be all that you can be!”

Sure, it worked for a while. When our news department broke the story about the record labels’ summer interns being stripped of their clothing, forced to stand on wooden crates and preach the virtues of the Pixies, Three Days Grace and Kasey Chambers, you couldn’t pry our news editor off of that tire with a crowbar. Or like that time when Martha Stewart stopped by to give our business officer a few stock tips in exchange for the routings for The Wallflowers and Whitesnake, you couldn’t get near that tire to save your life. Needless to say, when the folks from Lollapalooza announced that their festival was going to play two days in each market, the wait for tire space was standing room only.

But that was then. And now? Now the tire is occupied 24/7 by our own fearless leader. Day in and day out he’s out on that tire, reaching higher with every kick until he can see all across the Fresno landscape, on some days even as far as the Save Mart Center. And while having our boss out on that tire does have its advantages, such as he doesn’t reprimand us nearly as much as he used to, and it’s been months since he’s brought out his whip, we’re starting to worry about him. After all, he’s a pretty decent boss when you get right down to it. He pays us almost every month and he rarely charges for a second handful of toilet paper in the company restroom.

However, first things first, and the first thing he has to do is realize that he can’t go out back and ride that tire whenever things refuse to go his way. He’s got to learn to walk right past that tire whenever he’s feeling a bit low. He’s got to learn to ignore that tire’s allure when duty calls. In fact, he’s got to give up that tire for good. Now.

Because, as everyone knows, you’ll never get to where you want to be in this life if you become a prisoner of your own mood swing.