Take this job and hug it

Last night, I had a nightmare. I had started a new job and got up early and got dressed and showed up at the office. There were three big wide pine plank tables and nothing but inboxes on them. I sat at one and two other women sat at the other. There was no phone. No computer. And all I had was this inbox and a big set of keys – the keys had little name tags on them, one said, inbox, another said “forwarding” and another said “ladies’ bathroom” and one said, “entrance” and the other “exit” – I kept jangling the keys waiting for the inbox to fill up. But there was only one memo in the box and it was a list of the holidays.

This January will be ten years I’ve been with my company and 15 years that I’ve been an investigative reporter. The thought of a job where I have to go to an office and punch the clock and act like I’m busy for eight hours is anathema to me. Even if it means that every day is a new episode in a working environment that sometimes is as relaxed as a scene from “24” – it’s the empty inbox that really unnerves me.

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