The Secret of my Success

The secret of my success is failure.
Sometimes it's my own failure, but more often it's the screw-ups of others that allows me to somehow keep a job without doing any actual work or even showing up on a regular basis.

I'm at work now- blogging- and collecting salary while I do so. In fact, I started blogging due to the immense boredom surfeit generated at a previous job. I'd estimate that about 50% of my average workday was and is spent blogging, surfing and corresponding with non-Company persons. It's been like this for two years and three jobs.

So I'll take my wages over the last two years, divide them by two ( 50% of my work hours) and Voila! I'm a professional writer!
Half of my yearly wage is just slightly above the U.S. poverty level- slightly above poverty is very good money indeed for a writer/artist/musician type - by this measure I'm already quite successful.
How do I get away with this?

In my current situation I couldn't do 'work' even if I felt inclined to do so. In an effort to "upgrade" security (bad word) on our computer system, our IT department has relocated our server to a classified location- a location which I shall reveal right here for all the world to see.

The fucking thing is now located on the dark side of Mercury. Our data is transmitted via a relay system of marginally functional Soviet-era spy satellites, bounced off of whatever's left of the International Space Station and converted into Morse code by a doggedly anachronistic group of widely dispersed amateur HAM radio operators. Eventually this data shows up on my monitor in the form of an hourglass that never goes away.This Upgrade was done in order to make our UNIVAC-based computer network more efficient . I believe it cost upwards of 11 trillion dollars to do this.

My proposal was better- why don't we just buy computers that don't have 'Y2K Compliant' labels on them- if it's got a Y2K sticker, it was probably manufactured before the year 2000. Computer technology has advanced somewhat since then, or so I am told. My proposal, as is usual these days , was ignored.
Instead of improving my computer, IT restricted my access so that I can no longer pull up the system specs and ask my boss how it's possible to even run Windows with 64mb of RAM and a 128k processor. It can't run Excel without crashing Word.

That's cool with me -as long as I can surf and blog, I'll be OK- but it's somewhat counter-productive for the Company. Like I said, their failure= my success.

At the beginning of this year the Company 'accidentally' cancelled my health insurance - an "administrative error" that took over 90 days to correct. During this period, I refused to do any but the most crucial of tasks , lest I hurt myself and require medical attention. I thought this declaration would get me fired but it didn't- I did get a personal visit from our Regional Manager who insisted that the Company was trying to fix it and wasn't trying to rip me off. We shook on it.
His handshake was as good as his word. Unfortunately, it was as if I were shaking hands with a blob of over-cooked spinach; limp, moist and unpleasantly slimy-much like his words.

But last week it all got sorted out, so I decided to resume my duties.
Just in time for the Upgrade to Mercury.

The sad thing is, I'm actually a very good employee if allowed to work. I'd like a challenging job that keeps me busy all day. I thrive on that. I have to have it.Two hours a week of studio time does not fill my needs. I want more and I want it NOW.

I am easily bored. Left alone with nothing to do, I will invariably cause trouble. I will think to myself, "this is a very unwise thing to do", but I will do it anyway.
"So far, so good", I lie to myself.

When I was drinking I used to come to work drunk. A lot. No one seemed to care as long as I didn't fuck up in a noticeable fashion- as I said, I am actually quite competent in all manners of things- I just suck at being bored.

But I don't drink any longer so my only soporific is the Internet.
And coffee.
Another cuppa should calm me down, or at least make me pee.

My new work project is to eventually urinate in every lavoratory in this building. So far I've covered about half the Men's Rooms. (Well, not covered) but I'll need to pull some after-hours Overtime in order to use the Women's Rooms.

I can't wait to submit that Overtime proposal. The Company didn't heed my word when I said we need new computers, but I bet they'll be willing to pay me overtime so that I may piss all over, so to speak.

I wish that I were only making this up.