Do You Want to Quit Your Job and Play Internet Poker for a Living?

Well believe me, you ain't alone.

Work has been chewing at my ass this week. I've got half-a-dozen things to finish writing, and then I have to pack my desk because we're moving at the end of December. And I can't get motivated.

I don't know when work started to be a major crimp in my day ... don't get me wrong, I still love the fact that I'm getting a regular paycheque to write for a living, and I take a small solace in the notion that someone reading something I wrote might save themselves a workplace accident that could kill or cripple them.

But those of us who write for this outfit have been feeling like the appendix of the company lately. It doesn't help that I just learned I have to share a desk with the gloomiest bugger in the company ... oh, I forgot. It's not a desk. It's a "work station".

Instead of a 6'-2.5' flat surface, I get to share ten feet of flatness and a half-wall, just high enough for management to poke its inquiring nose over, with the gloomiest and messiest bugger in my section. Merely being in his presence seems to give me a sort of cancer of the morale, and the fact that management are complicit in this makes it stupider.

Worse yet, the window I was so looking forward to having will be of little use. These "workstations" (if the train stops at the train station, and the bus stops at the bus station ...) are walled on three sides. Looking from above, one would see a long side--the "back"--and two short sides. I am reminded of a cattle chute.

To top it off, my boss shoved us into the new space back-to-back with another writer and "guest" (since management would rather spend money on new furniture than another proofreader, for example). So the gap between the two walls will be where the light comes from, and anyone turning around may be able to see what I am displaying on my screen.

Mme says that's par for the course and that I should expect it. Hell, they're apparently going to start monitoring internet use too ... Can you say "spying."?

I resent being treated like a thirteen-year old. I produce my products, they're publishable and readable. And I do it for a modest salary. So what business have they snooping on me if I do my job and no-one complains?

To compensate for this abuse, we're getting twice the bonus money we got last year. If we got zero dollars last year, what is that this year? And to cap it all off, a cheery saleslady decide to get charitable on us this week. I'm posting that separately.

I've been playing internet poker lately. I'm about $200 up right now, playing on the odd hour I get between rehearsals, work, and facetime with Mme. Based on my current rate of return, I could potentially make more in an eight hour day at poker than I do per day at work.

And some days lately I have to list my reasons for not doing it.

I have no idea why I'm so steamed today. I feel like kicking a crippled orphan's crutch out from under him.

Just think--Rush Limbaugh, Micheal Savage, Anne Coulter and their friends probably feel like this all the time. What a horrid existence!