Why This Week Has Been Like a Dali Painting
First, the obvious Dali link.

Now....
There are some hours that drip by, the world is viewed as if through water filled goggles and heard as though down a long and echoey tunnel. Busy yet still, cluttered yet clear. I suppose that I should explain a little of what's been happening but I'll have to do it in a circuitious manner so as to avoid tipping off some of the powers that be.

Its Friday morning, we moved across the street on Monday. Do I have any internet connection in the office (bearing in mind that the majority of my work involves using the web)? No. Does my phone work so I can get calls and make them? Um, no but the guy should be here soon to fix it. Or was supposed to be there at 3 yesterday, Thursday, after not having the phone for the first four days of the week. But no, no 'Net and no phone makes any office a slow and dull place, even if it is a brand new office space.

But that is merely half of the watery world I've been in. Because I think I've made up my mind about my future with the company. I know where I stand, know my level of important or unimportance to the company. I know how much my present employer values or devalues me. How easily she believes I will be replaced. How ridiculous she thought my proposal was. A proposal that detailed, explicitly, what my contributions to the company have been. I showed her exactly what she had been getting for her money with and without the external PR agency supporting my efforts. Broke it down to something as plain and easy to understand as hits then and hits now.

The last half of 2002 saw .64 hits per day for the company. In the first quarter of 2003 the company has been getting 1.2 hits per day. The budget had been cut in half by the removal of the outside agency, she was on track to save more than $50K in 2003. I was performing better than could be expected and recieved a very good review with one minor area to work on. My efforts and successes and dedication to the company garnered me a whopping extra $75 every two weeks. After a year with the company and this is how she rewards very good performance while pocketing the spare $50k my work is saving for the company. Anyway, I wrote up a proposal letter to her after my review detailing all of this, couched in words meant to indicate to her that I was happy in my work, liked the direction the company was going, liked everything about the company but merely wanted my success to go along with the company's success.

I closed the proposal with a request for her to consider it over the weekend and we'd talk about it on Monday. Instead, she responded 20 minutes after she'd gotten it, her immediate and emotional response was to attack my credentials, call my proposal ridiculous and basically tell me that I am, in her eyes, worth less than she had raised my salary to. Oh yeah, and she says I should quit, not once but twice. Quit? Why? It couldn't possibly be because she's too cheap to even pay unemployment? No, that would be too horribly cynical of me, wouldn't it?

So, it brings us up to where this week went by with her literally speaking one sentence to me. I stopped in to her office on Tuesday (Monday was an off day, no work was going to be able to get done with everything being moved) to see if she was ready to talk. She waved me off with a too busy and that was that. However, our offices are right next to each other so there's some furtive glances when either of us walks by the others office door. Its not on me to reopen a dialogue with her, she wants to talk, she can talk. So my departure plane is circling planet fury still as I await our pending conversation to discuss what happens now.

Or maybe not, my brother is of the mind that, after her most vociferous response and then non confrontation in the office that she may just let it all slide and not broach it at all, ever. But no, my time's done there and staying merely reinforces her ability to underpay talent after just having gotten back from yet another trip to Europe (how many this year?) and then pleading poverty when it comes to anyone else. Whatever, its all good, its her world but I don't have to choose to live in it, there are other places to work or, far better yet, businesses that I can open for myself or something that Paula and I can open together.

A door is closing but another dozen doors are opening for us to explore.

Though I'm quite curious as to what others think. Am I insane to be breaking out of the office world in the worst unemployment in Northern California in a long time? Maybe but maybe not, extreme times often bring about extreme opportunities.

Oh yeah, and today? Yeah, I'm home sick. And surfing wirelessly on my couch at super speeds.

The Conundrum of Blogging
Its been a funny week and I think ol' Saddam's been pushing people to the blog because its been a busy one here. I've been getting record numbers of surfers all week long, in fact, this has been the single biggest week for hits for Intellectual Poison even though I've not written terribly much. Must be because of the war and the fact that I mention guys like Vincent Brooks, Hans Blix (actually the first mention of him), everyone's favorite pyscho Texan Shrub and his posse of angry old white men, Cheney, Rumsford and Ashcroft. Oh well, can't say as I mind name dropping from time to time, like the fact that Brian's new nickname in the office is MOAB because he broke the bathroom.

But I miss writing when I cannot. So many ideas and thoughts pass through my mind that I hate to not get some of them out. Perhaps the new world order will find a way around that.

In the meantime, anyone feel like donating a million bucks to my cause? Drop me an email.