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I've been on the internet since 1995. In a year, it will be 10 years. Maybe it's time for me to move on. No one stays on the internet that long.

I'm going to need to find some alternate way of earning an income. Benefits or not, I just can't stand working these kinds of office jobs anymore. The stress is aggravating my hypertension to the point where I'm having blackouts while driving the car.

I'm trying to hold out until Crawl finishes grad school and gets a real job. With his education and intelligence, I think he'll make enough money that I'll be able to get by on only a part-time job. I'd have to cut my spending somewhat, but I think I can handle that.

But I don't know if I can hold out that long. I had a "last straw" incident recently. It would take far too long to explain in detail what this all means, but my boss does these things called "quotes". She decided that she wanted me to start doing the quotes, too. I mentally agreed to it, but only under two conditions.

#1 - I would ONLY do the quotes if and when I finish all my other work that I have to do, first.

#2 - I would NOT take over doing the quotes completely. This same thing happened with entering new parts into the computer. At first, I was only supposed to help out with doing this. Now I do them all myself.

So, I've sort of been at a "Mexican standoff" with my boss over the quotes. I've had so much of my own work to do lately, that I haven't been able to get to the quotes. My boss hasn't touched them lately, either. There are so many piled up right now, that just looking at it fills me with a feeling of being overwhelmed.


This wouldn't bother me so much except for two factors:

#1 - EVERYTHING that I get in a day has to be done "right away". I'm not supposed to have any work left on my desk at the end of the night. And if something isn't done the same day that it comes to me, someone will come looking for it the next day and demanding to know why it wasn't done. My thought is, if you want me to handle this much work, then unless it's some kind of "super-emergency" order, then I should have two days to process everything that hits my desk. All of this "do this right now, right now, right now, right now, etc.", is shattering my nerves and raising my blood pressure. I'm having more and more blackouts, seizures, anxiety attacks, and migraines lately than I think I've ever had in my entire life.

#2 - I don't really get any breaks. I don't even get a true lunchbreak. Even while I'm trying to eat my lunch, people (including my boss) bring me stuff to do that (of course) has to be done "right then, there, and now". And my place refuses to pay for the lunch break, even if you work on it, so I don't get paid for that. But my boss takes a full lunch break, plus one or two smoking breaks a day, and I often see her just making personal chat with co-workers. Fuck, I wish *I* had time to do stuff like that!

So, anyway, if she doesn't help with that huge pile of quotes, I will try looking for some other job. I'm just feeling hopeless about it. I don't think any job I can get with my education and intelligence will be any better than the three I've already had.

And on top of all of this, some people at this place have just been really nasty, cranky, and whiny lately. You know, because like, it's my job to make everyone else's job easier. Also, since teaching people how to do their jobs correctly is certainly out of the question, I have to waste my time doing a lot of really stupid menial things. Every little mistake seems to get entirely blamed on me, because, you know, it's my job to hold everyone else's hand. I don't want to use a person's real name, so let's just say his name is "John". I come in to work one day and my boss immediately starts coming down on me because "John is upset that this part wasn't entered correctly!" Well, okay, yes, you're right, I should have caught the mistake, but #1, I didn't actually make the mistake, the estimating department did. I just copied their error into the computer. And #2, *I* know that John is supposed to inspect those parts before they ship, therefore, John should've caught it, too. (Sounds to me like John is throwing a temper tantrum to save face because he knows he fucked up.) But, yeah, somehow, this is entirely my fault.

Yup. This is the glamorous world of computer careers that my parents promised me if I took data processing in college instead of art. All this and picking through junk piles in a dirty warehouse, looking for lost parts.

My boss just spent the good part of the morning chatting with a co-worker about her vacation and other personal crap. I counted. I did 6 production data updates between the time they started chatting and the time they stopped. It takes a little longer to do a quote, but I estimate, she could've done about 4 quotes in that time. And yet the quotes still sit there, untouched.

This is totally unfair to me...

Well, there are two problems with the first issue of the lunchbreak:

#1 - We don't have a lunchroom here, so I have to eat at my desk. I could go out to eat, but the only place is Wendy's and I don't want to eat Wendy's food every single day, because it's not very healthy. (Well, I suppose I could just get a salad and a baked potato, go easy on the butter, but that would get awfully repetetive.) Also, it'll cost more not just in the cost of the food, but also the extra gas I'll expend driving back and forth.

#2 - Telling people "I'm on my lunchbreak" doesn't work. I've tried, and I get one of two results: The person completely ignores me and continues talking about what they need done or he/she throws a huge temper tantrum. My boss will stand and stare at me until she actually sees me get the work done. She knows that if she leaves the room, I'll put it aside and wait until my lunchbreak is over. But she wants it done "now", so she won't leave until I do it. So, in a sense, they're getting free work out of me. My boss and I are allowed to take our lunchbreaks at the same time, but it doesn't always work out that way. Because of the work I have to do, I often take my break later.

As for the second issue...I dunno. Getting fired wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, except that I'd be worried I couldn't find another job. But I'm not deathly scared of being fired like I was when I lived in NJ because of the way my parents were about it.

When I got my first job in NJ and I told my mother several months later that it wasn't working out and I was going to quit and look for something else if things didn't improve, she threw a temper tantrum the size of Montana, throwing things and crying that she'd have no money to make the payments on her car. I don't have to worry about something like that now...

I've just been doing what Sethra suggested - I'm working at my own pace, regardless of what's in the quote pile. I got about 8 of them done today.

As for the lunchbreak issue, I had that happen again today. Someone brought me something on my lunchbreak, and I told them I was still on break and I'd get to it when I'm done, and they turned, threw their hands up in the air, and walked out.

It's just that kind of attitude that really annoys me. I'm sure that person got a full lunch break, and wouldn't like it if someone bothered him to do work while he was on it.

You can't imagine how upset I am over this. Crawl and I work hard for our dollars. I scraped those up off the floor of our apartment so that I could have a lunch today. That money belonged to us. And now some fucktard I don't even know gets it because his parent died. Well, grow up! People don't live forever! It's not like anyone gave me money when people I knew and was close to died, and I wouldn't have wanted it anyway.

I feel like I've just been mugged.

I emptied out my purse and miraculously found a five-dollar bill I didn't know I had. (But that's all I have). But it will be enough to buy lunch.

However, I'm still very angry about this. I will make them pay for it, somehow. I think, today, I just conveniently won't have enough time to get to that pile of quotes.