I thought about quitting my job today ...

I almost always do on Social Security check day. I look at the amount and wonder if I could learn to live on it.

In the three plus years that I have worked here I have never once heard the words "Good Job, Sally". Maybe I'm not doing a good job. Every year on my anniversary I get a carefully bureaucratically worded review ringing with faint praise which concludes with a munificent fifty cent an hour raise.

Now, this is a not a cheerful man. He does not throw compliments around. He is normally accusative, based, he would say, on his many years as a police chief. The fact that he is far more civil to me when our "part-time" employee is present in the offices notwithstanding.

In fact, when I asked today if he wanted me to quit he was quick to point out that if my work was in any way unsatisfactory I would hear about it. Further, he said, if he was displeased with my performance, I would be able to tell. Really? How?

Don't misunderstand. This is a swell job. I am fortunate to have been found for it. Thank you, everyone at St. Peter's who told him he should hire me. I walk to work two blocks and see friends and folks to talk to all the way. The hours are reasonable. And even if there is the occasional twelve or thirteen hour day for a long board meeting, there is an hour of comp time for every hour over eight. I can and do all the tasks assigned and there are very few chores that I absolutely dread. I have even come to terms with dusting and vacuuming every Friday and emptying all the trash. The office is lovely and comfortable, at least until the temperatures get into the high seventies outside and we have to have air conditioning blowing down to the high sixties or low seventies to offset the heat.

I just go through all of these points every month to remind myself how very lucky I am, how grim the job market is, especially if your next birthday is the seventieth, and how little money I have.

Okay, all better now. Hi Ho Hi Ho its off to work I go ......