2009-09-29 - 7:12 p.m.

Seriously, five years?

Wow.
So, uh, how's it going?
Me? Oh, you know, just kind of hanging out, the usual.
What? Five years? No.
No.
It can't have been five years since I posted here. Lemme just check the �
Holy shit.
Yep. Five years.
Huh.
Five. Years.
Five-a-ding-dong years-areeno.
Yeah.
Um.
Sorry about that.
So what's been up?
Well, I haven't talked to her in a long while, though I may still torture myself (just a smidge) over her Facebook postings. And there was another girlfriend for a whopping three weeks, but we've since managed to reconstruct a very solid and satisfying friendship.
I made a movie (it sucked, but only for technical reasons).
I got back into writing fiction.
I got a dog (who is the absolute light of my life).
You know. Life.
Why am I back?
Yeah, so one of the big reasons I started posting here so, so long ago was that I needed a place to vent about my well-paying but otherwise crappy job. And today, I feel like I need that again.
Oh, sure, there's Twitter and Facebook and stuff like that. But those aren't exactly private. In fact I know for certain that people at work look in on those from time to time. Looking for thoughtcrime I like to call it.
See, I've been at my current job for over two years, and what at the start was a really great job for a really great company has turned into a nerve-wracking and frustrating gig. Lemme break it down for you. Incompetent + suck-up = promotion. Competent + speak your mind = "resigned".
Not me.
Thank goodness not me.
But someone who is probably the best programmer we have on staff "resigned" today. By which I mean was fired.
So, yeah, in public I have to praise the Emperor's New Clothes. In private I have to wonder what the hell I'm doing.
It was a weird, weird day. Because I went over my annual review with my manager and it was positive and he seemed to think I should take on more responsibility. Of the variety where I get more responsibility and more stress and get to be a leader, but don't get a raise or anything like that. Oh, and speaking of raises, yeah, In This Economy there will be no raises this calendar year and you'd best not ask about details on that. We have always been at war with Eurasia.
Anyway, I had a couple of hours where I was feeling pretty good.
Then one of my best friends at work "resigned".
And suddenly I'm nervous. Because one of my official goals is to "Challenge the process". But apparently, I have to be very careful about how I do that. There seems to be a right way and a wrong way.
I dunno. There's more to say about the ongoing fiasco that is my work environment than I could possibly say here. I may or may not revisit the topic (or, heh, this site) in the days to come.
Let's just say that I really, really needed to vent tonight and I wanted to do it in a way that would not bring down the Thought Police. (Oh yeah, PenPal? If you see this, please make no mention of it on publicly accessible areas of Facebook. I know that my boss reads, and I apparently can't afford to criticize anything anymore.)
So, yeah.
See you in five years? :)