08/24/06 - 10:04 p.m.

So I'm furious about work right now. It's a couple things that coincidentally happened the same day.

It's not unusual for technical people to blow off everyone else out of a sense of superiority. It just bothered me that on the same day my supervisor decided to bring up the fact that I informed him I'd be in an hour late, two days in a row.

I could say "That's what I get for being honest." Although maybe I am being unreasonable; I haven't exactly made an effort to create an impression of either competence or reliability. Silly me; I thought they would form opinions based on actual work.

I could say there was also bad news from my bank, and I wasn't happy with how much I have left in my personal budget now. But I think the real problem is how disappointed I am - because I'd been making a real effort to do a good job on all the ambiguous and difficult work that was assigned to me. And now I have to also deal with "appearances" at work.

Also, there's knowing, in advance, that my particular position will never be important, or even defined - so there's really no possible hope of anything particularly meaningful or rewarding. Except paychecks. (That's why the bank thing was so annoying - I'd hoped I'd already piled up enough bank checks.)

So while I'm not conveying "responsibility" at work, I am in fact a good worker - skilled at what I do. It's just that that doesn't matter. Everyone is more about obeying of the ritual. I'm so disillusioned - I'm going through all the various ways that I could quit.

My worry is that this is the first fateful step, where it's all downhill from here.

I read a biography of an entertain who died when he was just ten years older than I am. So that's sad too. I could also be spending the last ten years of my life at a job that I hate because I was just too chicken to leave the paychecks behind.