Have you been watching American Idol? Did you see that girl from Albemarle? It’s right down the road from here. You know Kelly Pickler is from Albemarle. Did I ever tell you about the story about the date I went on with a doctor from Albemarle? I met him online. He was really nice, so, so nice. Really nice guy, but his arms weren’t proportional. I felt like the shallowest person alive because the connection wasn’t there. Albemarle too, I just couldn’t see living there, what with my great career here in Charlotte and all, and Albemarle being such a small town.

Have I stalled too much?

Well, my boss did take me to lunch and my instincts were right. It wasn’t good news. My boss started our lunch with, “I want you to know I really like you.” Uh oh. The short version is it went downhill from there. He’s a kind and sincere man and the favorite boss I’ve ever had. He is a special person. He’s the front man on our customer account and takes a lot of abuse from the customer. I mean a lot of abuse. Today he told me about an incident last week when the customer called him in his hotel room, called him a variety of names and used a lot of expletives, the same ones I used when I watched Hoey pitch, and then hung up on him. I admire and respect my boss a ton, so I didn’t pull out the heat when he told me that he just gave me the only bad rating I’ve ever gotten in my life. Part of my goals were based on, for example, doing work, and since the customer didn’t buy anything, it made meeting that goal pretty difficult. The few projects I was on, the customer loved, but nevertheless, someone had to get a bad rating since we have a mandatory bell curve rating with hard numbers that 14% of people get set up to get the axe. I feel worthless and like a big loser and it’s very clear to me that I’ll be completely unemployable when I am fired, which will be any day now, though my boss promises me that he would save me if the big corporate machine made such efforts.

So, I’m still employed, but I suck and I wish I could be mad at my boss, but I’m really not, because I know he’s as much a victim of our corporate policies and our customer’s stubborn indecisiveness as I am, and it is what is anyway. I brought home my plant and took down the pictures in my cubicle anyway as an immature sign of protest.

I came home to our growing invasion of moths and a broken ice maker in the refrigerator. So I made a White Russian and waited for my husband to get home to fix things. That’s exactly what he did. He produced a mangled chip clip which somehow worked itself down into the ice maker from an unknown location on an unknown source. If it weren’t for him I’d have sucked on the tailpipe a long time ago, but he makes everything right. Thanks to him, tomorrow will just be another day.

Last night wasn’t my most restful night, but I’m sure I’ll be able to get plenty of sleep the rest of the week. I decided that if I’m going to be unemployed, I have to learn to act more like an unemployed person. To that end, I’ve started peppering my speech with words like “dude,” and “rad.” I tested out “Buddy can you spare a dime” on a coworker a few minutes ago. He just raised an eyebrow and then wordlessly swiveled his chair back around to face his computer.

One of my colleagues is sharing helpful suggestions for my future, coaching me to change my wardrobe, obtain a shopping cart and a dog, and practice the words, “Can you help a fellow American who’s down on her luck?” These are skills I’m going to need.