Assholes and Work. But Not Assholes at Work

You know how sometimes, evil spam-senders will insert common names into the subjects of their e-mails to try to trick you into opening them? You know, things like “Hi, it’s Mike” or “Joe asked me to send this to you.” Well, I was just going through my e-mail and I found a bunch of messages from the same person with the names “Bennie,” “Catalina,” “Harry,” and “Lou” in the titles. Yeah. It’s a shame that it was spam, because I’d really been hoping to hear from my old friend Catalina.I got an e-mail from somebody regarding my profile on OKCupid with the subject title “Poseur.” The e-mail read:

“You cant be a real geek if you drink and smoke. Thats the number one requirement to being a geek, not doing cool things at bars. A true geek doesnt do any of that stuff. As soon as you drink and smoke, youre not a geek anymore, you are in the cool crowd.
Sorry, but thats how it is. :/“

So I replied to him, and told him that he’s an asshole and I don’t go to bars. Then this morning I got a reply back, where he said that I need ritelin.

[Sic.]

I’ve been working for the same people since January, only it’s been through a temp agency. Some temp, who stays put for four-and-a-half months. I was starting to get pissed that I hadn’t been offered a permanent position, since that was the deal when I started, and on the very same day that I was about to call the agency for a meeting, they pulled me into a meeting at work and offered me a place there. It turns out they didn’t have a choice — I wasn’t told when I started that I was only allowed to work for one place for 600 hours as a temp. That 600 hours was up nearly a month ago, so they had to do something. They either had to get rid of me, or bring me in permanently, and they didn’t want to get rid of me.

The thing is, I don’t want to work there permanently. I haven’t been particularly happy, and I’ve been submitting resumes and going on interviews like crazy looking for something better. I like where I work, and I like the people with whom I work, but I don’t like what I do. I basically stuff envelopes and stand over a copier all day, and I am not suited to that sort of boring, repetitive work. Still, nothing’s come up yet, and I don’t want to go back to being a typical temp who works at a different place every other day, so I accepted.

It’s a little bit more money — a dollar-fifty more an hour. This is still about two-fifty less than what I should be earning, based on my skills and the advertisements of other local positions for which I am qualified. On the plus side, it means that come August 1st, I’ll have health insurance again. It also means that, for now at least, I have a real job with the security that goes along with it.

I feel like I should be happier about this. I really just don’t care.