September 3, 2010

"Greener Pasture" Exposed After Three Years to be Just a Fenced-In Quarter-Acre of Cow Shit

As a retired superpowered crimefighter, the bulk of my income comes from appearance fees and action-figure royalties. For the last three years, however, I have allowed my vast fortune to marinate in myriad investment portfolios, and I have subsisted on the mortal salary from a desk job.

The work was high-level stuff – lots of widgets to be built, each requiring a minimum of four conference calls and a WebEx – but clearly beneath me. So on Wednesday I gave notice and set sights on the next opportunity. But instead of a clean break (the norm in this industry for proprietary reasons), the office lumberg convinced me to stick around for three days to pitch in on an ongoing project without telling anyone on the team that I have quit.

Under normal circumstances, I am a patient man. But the poor unaware souls around me continue trying to put long-term responsibilities under the substantial girth of my vocational umbrella, and my gag order prevents me from letting them know they will have to reassign these duties within a matter of days. It seems a poor way to manage transition, but as Grand Ole Opry diva Jan Howard said, “That’s not my problem anymore.”

Work without consequence is beyond boring. To quote noted philosopher Howard “Biff” Tannen (c. 1955), I’m ready to "make like a tree, and get outta here.”

3 comments:

  1. I see you are at least making productive use of your ultimate (penultimate? antepenultimate?) lunch hour. Hopefully drafted over a martini or three?

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  2. Bah. Having three martinis is like having one sock: mostly useless, but it will still keep you from leaving the house. (Zing!)

    I started playing the "meow" game. Every five minutes I repeat the word "meow" at an escalating volume until someone seriously asks me to stop.

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  3. What is going on? New job? Let me know.

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