Yeah, it's been great and all, but you have got to go.

Oh crap, is it time to find another job already? I am afraid so. Let me count the ways. The commute absolutely, positively crushes my soul. Somehow an eight-hour workday seems longer when you're traveling three hours back and forth to the place of business. Also, you would think that by October, all of the back-to-school-and-no-more-vacations crowd would be back in full force, but somehow every means of transit just gets more and more congested every day. Especially that infernal Metro. There is nothing so demoralizing as being squeezed, shoved, brushed aside, poked, and just generally treated like a piece of meat because the prick with a giant unwieldy briefcase thinks that he's more important than anyone else and he has to get there first, dammit. It amazes me to think that I pay to be treated this way, but that's America for you. And the job itself? It's mindless busy work, and it gets more mindless and more busy all the time. You may remember something about Mikey getting a chance to quit working alongside me and start teaching, right? Well, they haven't hired anyone to replace him, and they don't plan to do so. Which essentially means that tasks which were previously divided among five people (and six people at one time) will now be split four ways. For the math-handy among you, that's 25% more work. So do you think they're going to show their appreciation by handing out some of the $27,000 they no longer have to pay Mikey? Even a simple cost of living increase? Hoho, oh, no. In fact, my boss forwarded an email detailing the surprising news that a senior political writer at the magazine had just been laid off, with "more likely". So, as always in the working world, the people who make it happen take the fall to protect the bottom line for the Big Boys. Incidentally, I don't know how much longer I can live on my salary as it is. Sure, I'm making it right now, but the always-lovely Unexpected Surprises keep blowing holes in my checking account. The estimate on a new muffler, which I will be getting this weekend, is $200 - UNLESS I need a whole new exhaust system, in which case we're looking at 500 or 600 dollars. To top that off, I have a fairly pressing need for a home computer that doesn't freeze up 30% of the time I log on-line...every time I log off...every time I try to open another program while on-line...you get the idea. So that's at least another 500, even without any bells or whistles. My car is a ticking time bomb, I spend more money on gas than I do on food (I guess we all do)...ugh. $27,000 and I worry about making ends meet. Is it any wonder I'm pissed off at the people running this country?

Well, back to the drawing board. Time to shine up that resume and bark like a dog.

Current Music: Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone