Recently I've had a couple of friends who have said they hate their jobs . But I started thinking about it, you know, if I really am that miserable I can leave at any time. I mean, your job is not like your family. You can choose your job. Your job does not choose you.

Between October 1999 and May 2002 I worked for four different companies, with the longest stint being 9 months. In all but one, I had the choice to stay or leave. Things weren't good, for various reasons, so I left. I left them all. Do I look back and regret any of this? Not really. Why would I? There was no way I was willing to sit around and remain anxious and/or miserable. What kind of a utopian job am I looking for? Not sure yet. Hopefully I'll know it when I see it.

I spent seven years working for Starbucks (90-97). I bought into their culture of crap for seven years. I bought their mission statement and in turn, I internalized it and proseltyzed it and jammed it down every new hire's throat in each orientation class I taught. I worked for them in three different cities and at the corporate offices. They are no different from any other corporation and would be better off if they focused on telling their "baristas" about the good things they do for them like full health bennies for PT workers, 401k and stock purchase plans and the ubiquitous pound of coffee a week instead of trying to brainwash them into thinking that Howard Schultz has created a utopian corporate culture; that Starbucks is the panacea, and pent-ultimate retail nirvana. It's a fucking corporation and now that I have left there, and have gone on to others. . .well, it's easy to see now. Boy was I brainwashed and taken in by all of it. I was so disillusioned when it turned out to be a false assumption. And then in September 1997 I snapped. I mean, I didn't go postal, but I had to look at myself and say, "I'm 32, what the fuck am I doing working fast food. I keep trying to bullshit myself that this company is more than that but it really isn't. I need a REAL job."

So I left. And it was hard. And when I got laid off from NBC in May 2002 and my unemployment was running out, I thought maybe my only option was to return to Starbucks. Maybe I was only qualified for crap jobs. But this all takes me back to choice. Thank god I made the choice to trust in my abilities and trust in myself enough to perservere and to stick with what I do now.

I don't know how I got off on today's preachy rant. I really don't.

I really would just like to become a "lady of leisure." That is what I am most suited to I think.