Is it the
Alpha male deal? Or is it just old-fashioned
common sense? You find yourself in a situation where no one wants or knows how to take charge, and there'll always be someone who'll step in and be the
straw boss. Watch
Survivor, if you can stand it. That's a perfect example of picking straws to see who is going to be boss for a day. Tomorrow, we can pick again.
So, all this time, I've thought that this is what straw boss means. You get in a circle and hand out straws, only one of which is shorter than the others, and the one who gets the short straw gets to be boss today. Meaning, that no one in the circle is more qualified to be the real boss than anyone else. Meaning that it was all just a pissing contest.
Then I do some research on it, just to confirm that I'm correct (as, of course, we all know I am) and what do I find? Some upstart bastards trying to tell me that I'm all wet here. They say that the phrase has to do with the fact that since the straw is just the by-product of the work of a regular farm, that the straw boss is just the guy who would make sure the peons got the straw gathered after the threshing machine got through with the main work of the farm. The Head Dick would be in charge of the wheat going into the threshing machine, and the straw boss would make sure the discarded straw got gathered up.
I guess. But it sure did always make sense to me to think of a bunch of doofuses standing alongside the roadway, digging a ditch or laying asphalt, every morning after coffee,
picking straws.