Hey Jakey,

In my estimation, jerks go to their graves never knowing that they are jerks. Even if you tell a jerk, "Hey, you're a JERK!" Because she is a jerk, she will disregard you and go on her merry, jerky way.

I like to think that I am not a jerk. People like me, want to do things for me, want to be around me. I believe in my heart that people think well of me. I have good friends. I will never be lonely. Sure, I'm prone to jerky behavior once in a while. I accidentally cut people off in traffic, once in a while I get in the 10-item checkout line with 11 or 12 items. But all in all, I truly believe that I am a nice person. I think having non-jerky parents had a great deal to do with this. I can only hope that your daddy and I are non-jerky enough to raise you up to also be a non-jerk.

In my job, I deal with jerks every day. In a vague, good-humored way, I'd like to list a few of them:

Jan Short Okay, not so vague there. But she did have the nerve to tell *me* in no vague and uncertain terms, what she thought about me.

The Mighty Jerk-Off I hope she dies bitter and alone, with her mangy, smelly dogs gnawing on her undiscovered carcass.

That guy... the one that I did all that spec work for, held all those sexist, icky, male-oriented meetings with, who told me my design work sucked, and who still hasn't paid me for the huge-ass signage that is affixed to the outside of his business in downtown CC.

The Mighty Jerk-Off Yeah, again. She's such a jerk that I have to mention her twice.

Can you tell, sweetie, that your momma had a very, very bad week? Okay, so I worked about 70 hours last week. Turned around a very large product all. by. my. self. Worked a couple of 20-hour days. It's not that I expect kudos every time I do something that's expected of me. I don't want a big brass band to perform because I did my job. But a little teensy weensy bit of appreciation goes a loooooooooooong way.

Maybe I have unrealistic expectations of job satisfaction. But is it unrealistic to expect to gain just a tiny bit of satisfaction from your work? Scratch that. The work satisfies me. I enjoy sitting in front of a computer and getting it to do the things that I want it to do. Making things. Designing. Marrying words to pictures and making something readable. I've been doing this in one form or another for the past 20 years.

It's people that suck. I've not yet had a boss that I liked and respected, or who liked and respected me. One of my problems is that I let myself be taken advantage of. I quietly and efficiently do my job. Bosses keep giving me the impossible, and I keep lobbing it back at them: DONE! Things get more and more impossible, but I keep lobbing it back. All of a sudden, *I'M* the asshole if I complain about the workload, or--God forbid--ask for a raise.

It took me 7 years to get there with my last job, and it's taken me only 4 years to get there with this job. The Mighty Jerk-Off won't even spare me a glance at the office this week because I had the AUDACITY to question the whole system last Tuesday. Sigh. Part of me wants her to fire me because I know how it would sooooo fuck up her little regime to not have me around. The other part of me wants to win the lotto so I can march into her office and tell her to go fuck herself.

(oooh oooh, earmuffs, Jakey!)

I don't know where I'm going with this post, son. I want you to grow up to be respectful and appreciative of other people. But mostly I want you to grow up to be an independently wealthy rock star or sports star, so that you can bypass the whole JOB thing, which on the whole, is not the place to be if you wish to be respected or appreciated.

Office culture = tasteless sheet cakes from Raley's whenever someone has a birthday; smoke breaks with people you don't care for, but have to pretend that you do, because they sit in the cubicle across from you; Friday night happy hours at the bar talking about other people in the office, when you really really rather talk about boys, books, movies--ANYTHING but work!

Sigh.... this is the week. I'm crossing the border tomorrow and buying lotto tickets. If anyone deserves to win, it's US, Jakey!