Racial awkwardness

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My last job I worked as a technician at a place that made industrial lubricants and metal cutting fluids. And yes, it was as exciting as it sounds. Anyway, one day my boss was trying to mix something up but he needed a sample of something. So I was going around to the other labs to see if anyone had some. One of the other technicians was an older woman I was friends with. When I stopped in she was in the middle of like three different things. She explained that her boss was on a business trip that week, and he had left her almost two weeks’ worth of work to do. I smiled and was a fraction of a second away from saying, “So you’re saying [boss’ name] is a real slave driver?” I meant it as someone giving a heavy work load. Fortunately, I was able to stop myself because this older woman I was friends with, was also black. It wasn’t that I had forgotten she was black, it was just something unimportant, like if someone is left or right handed.