11:59 p.m.

• So here I am again in the office pulling a 12+ hour shift to get shit done that nobody else cares about getting to our customers. (Well, I'm home now, but I just got back from work so this counts.) Actually, this one is a funny story because my idiot big boss (not the usual “idiot boss” I talk about) just got caught in a lie by one of our directors. Of course, it doesn’t really matter because nothing will be done, but it’s funny nevertheless. Here’s a brief rundown.

I’m to publish information for the next several months about something from an outside source within our organization. Boss wants to be the COMMUNICATIONS LIASION, meaning NOTHING goes to me until he APPROVES it. Fair enough. I get no information. I mention my lack of material to the boss on the day of my deadline to collect material for publication. He says he hasn’t received anything from said director, who is the “Communications Liaison” for the other side of this project (all information from her side is supposed to be filtered through her and given to my boss). I smell bullshit because this director TOLD me she sent my boss material. I give this director a call and she’d furious because she says she gave material to my boss WEEKS ago. She wants to talk to my boss. No problem.

This is when it gets good.

My boss tells the director, after she tells him that she sent him e-mails containing materials she wanted published, that there were no attachments in her e-mails with the information in question. Riiiiiiiight. When I heard this b.s. I told the director that she could go into her “sent” archive and look at the messages she sent out and see if there was an attachment included. (She’s not the most tech-savvy person out there.) Turns out the director didn’t even need to do that because during this conversation between my boss and director my boss was reading a piece of information the director wanted published and thought he was reading from an old document. Nope. He was reading from a document that she e-mailed him – you know, that attachment he said he never got.

Oops.

Long story short: Because my boss did NOTHING while COMMUNICATIONS LIASION, I get to do a shitload of work on a Saturday. Because as it turns out, the information wasn’t nearly enough to cover the reserved space I was told to set aside. Now if I would have received this information in a timely manner, this wouldn’t have been a big deal. However, when it’s post-deadline it becomes a big deal. But you know what – that’s OK. I spent 12 hours in the office when nobody else was there, and I’ll be spending that time at home on December 28 when everyone else is there. Oh, and I’ll be spending that extra chunk of time at an office Christmas party this Thursday – the office Christmas party to my new job.

[Now you could have said that I should have reminded my boss earlier about my lack of material. Fair enough. However, after four years I've learned that it's best to just keep your mouth shut until something is due because I'm dealing with people who can't do their jobs and I'm not their mommy. Believe me, I knew about this lack of content and prepared for it. Because of this, I'm still right on schedule to my bigger deadlines. Oh, yeah, I also had to manually stuff 1,000+ envelopes, which I was told by my boss TWICE that this menial task that really should be outsourced, was more important to do than the job I was hired to perform. Any more questions as to why a) I'm leaving, and b) I try to keep my distance from these people?]

It’s odd. I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and I must admit this is a pretty awesome feeling. The last time I left a job to take another one in the immediate vicinity was in 1995 when I was in community college. (Well, that job I went to I ended up getting fired from, so if you want to count that one instead then my last time I jumped jobs was 1996.) Otherwise, every job I’ve had since then I left because I was moving 3-5 hours away. Man is this a great feeling. You think about “well, this will be the last time I have to deal with this shit,” or “no problem, I won’t have to bother with this again.” My only question now is when should I give my notice. Here’s my problem. I’m an hourly employee, which I prefer because then you don’t get fucked over (as much) when it comes to what you work and what you get paid for. We have pay periods that span two weeks. I have four days off during the week of December 24-28 (two holiday, one vacation, one from the hours I worked above). If I give my notice now, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to screw me out of this money. So I have to wait until Thursday January 3 when my check gets direct deposited at 12:01 a.m. before saying “see ya.” Now I would stay two weeks after the first week of January, but there’s a catch. I would want my vacation/sick days for 2008 cashed out. In advance. I know they would never do that, so the only thing I’m pondering is this:

1) Do I come in, give my resignation, say “see ya” and leave?

or

2) Do I just put my letter on my boss’ desk and disappear with all my belongings?

I’m still undecided on this one. As much as I want to see the look of shock (or perhaps lack thereof), I think it would be equally awesome just to have me like I was never there and when they go into my office all they see is nothing. Either way, I got about two weeks to decide.

8 p.m.

• Gimmie Cincy over the 49ers.