8 1/2 years for this?

I went to college for 8.5 years. I earned two bachelor's degrees. I'll admit the first one was a total waste, since I practically never use anything I learned in my current job. The second degree came after a very challenging curriculum in which my teachers pushed me to break through my barriers and achieve the full potential of my natural abilities.

So where am I now, after all that? Am I working in some glamorous job in a fabulous office earning $70K a year? Nope. I'm sitting in a cubicle, staring at a 20" LCD monitor, sipping instant coffee in an effort to keep from nodding off, for the same crappy 30 G's I started with nearly 3 years ago. Meanwhile, the Boss is out on yet another week-long vacation, which he seems to take every 2 months or so. I've been working nonstop on one last-minute, can-you-do-this-for-me-real-quick project after another in addition to my regular duties. The company took out a 2-page spread in a publication that goes to press tomorrow, and gave me the work order yesterday. So whatever I produce is going to be a little sub-par because of the rush, and I fear that it will reflect badly on me. Also, today I had to find out what the fuck .emb and .dst files are, which a supplier requested for embroidering our logo onto garments. No, Illustrator can't magically make those, you dumb fuckers. I guess they just assumed every Mac comes bundled with embroidery digitization software. And then there are the fucking idiot clients who submit design requests and don't have their shit together before I start their ads, so after I make a great first draft, they come back with all these changes because they were too fucking stupid to write clearly what they wanted in the first place. It's like ordering a hot dog and once you get it, telling your server you want a hamburger instead.

I'm fucking worn out. I'm not used to working 8 full hours a day. Plus I went to the gym last night and will work out again tonight with my trainer, so I'll basically want to curl up and die come 7:00 tonight. If I didn't need a day job, I could work out in the middle of the afternoon when I have more energy, it's less crowded, and I don't have to drive back home in the dark. Thank god there's actually daylight again when I leave work. Gentle-men such as myself are not meant to rise at 7:30AM like common farmhands. I'm having to take time out to blog about it so that I don't set the god-damned building on fire. I've always bitched about having to sit in a cubicle for 8 hours, but now I yearn for the kind of workdays I had a year ago, when I had another person in my department to help with the workload. Back then I had an average of 4-5 hours a day in which to goof off. Nowadays I'm lucky if I have 1-2 hours, if anything. I ain't paid enough for working a full 40 hours a week.

Well, at least today I received my synthetic paper and thick lamination pouches so I can make my own custom ID cards. I made one today during lunch that proclaims my status as an ordained minister, and another generic "freelance press" card that may somehow come in handy one day. When you think about it, under the First Amendment everyone is a member of the press who wishes to gather news. They're pretty close in look and feel to PVC cards, lending them a feeling of authenticity. Soon I'll order a tool to punch a slot in the ID for a hangy clip. I could make great money selling fake IDs to college kids, but I dare not for fear of pound-me-in-the-ass prison.