I would say I wish my soul weren't so easily crushed, but, actually, I don't.

My boss is encouraging me to take advantage of some of the training sessions my company offers. These, uh, webinars (apparently a word business types use without abandon) were at the top of my list:

Overcoming the Absurdity of Meetings
Who's Talking Smack Behind Your Back?
Don't Take Anything Personally
The Gift of Struggle
What Is Your Life's Work?

Last night I lamented to my loving and patient mother that I'm having to find something to fill my time with at work in order to keep my job. It's no news to anyone that the economy, well, it isn't doing so great, and companies are beginning to look at bottom lines. Which means employees are having to figure out how to make themelves indispensable, but, honestly, I don't have the stomach for that. If I'm dispensable, gah, dispense of me already.

After listening to me wail about it for a few minutes, my mom calmly told me that this is how the corporate world works. Also, not to take it personally. I told her if this is how the corporate world works, I don't want to live in it.

Then I told her a story my economics professor told me in college. These workers on a conveyor belt are told to assemble their product, but they don't have the correct parts for their product, and when they point this out to their manager, he tells them to assemble it anyway. What matters is that they assemble the product because that's their job, not that the product is assembled correctly because making sure it's assembled correctly is someone else's job. So once the product is (incorrectly) assembled, the person whose job it is to make sure the product is assembled correctly says it's not assembled correctly. They have to disassemble it and assemble it again, except that they still don't have the right parts for it, so they have to assemble it incorrectly again. And this happens a few more times, and then everyone goes crazy.

I actually don't know if this was the correct end of the story as Mr. Balla told it, but at this point in time it sounds right to me.

Obviously, I don't know any way to take it other than personally.

So I cried about it to Chad, and he stroked my hair and told me that if I want to quit my job and try to be a writer, he will support me.

It's a tempting offer. But I do like my job. So in the meantime I'm going to learn from the corporation I work for how to deal with the soul-crushing absurdity of it all. Via webinar.