So, I guess most of us start out working for peanuts, but I wound up working for coconuts, to put it nicely.I should have known better than to think it was actually possible that I had landed my dream job on my thirtieth birthday. Huge office, no wheeling and dealing over salary, in a new field that I found so interesting. Too good to be true, right. Right. This is turning into the job from hell. I read someone else's blog that said the hated their job and that they thought most other people did too. I don't hate my job, I hate my boss, and all the other idiots that have authority over me 45 hours a week, oh and don't forget all the stupid mundane tasks that I have to perform.

If I had known in high school, or even college that my two college degrees wouldn't be able to save me from scrounging the bowels of the job market I probably would have wound up one of those eternal students, still finishing up their masters' at thirty-five, working part-time and living at home. But here I am, living in Florida, working for a bunch of nuts, at least the weather is nice.

I spent a number of years here not trying to find a job that was worthy of the many skills I have to offer, and taking advantage of the jobs I've had lately training horses. You see, horses never, ever talk, and I find the silence rewarding - don't forget, the weather is great too. There have been many mornings that I spent mucking out stalls and thinking how lucky I was to be doing it. There's a certain freedom to working outdoors, seeing the sunrise, getting an early start to your day. Unfortunately, the pay ain't great, so I guess that's what motivated me to look for a career, instead of a job, and eventually landed me here.

Maybe I realized that my job assignment was slowly mutating around the 3 month mark. By now, the nine month mark, I feel more like personal secretary to my boss's entire family. Which, is not that huge of an exageration since his father works for him too, and is technically my boss. Although that doesn't explain why I find myself doing 'favors' for everyone in his immediate, and not so immediate family.Hmmm.. where to begin.. last week... I'm at work, as usual, and my boss, the owner of the company, and his mother come into my office, where he proceded to ask me if I could go out and take his wife's watch to have the battery replaced. His mother happily volunteered, and said that she was going to the same place for the same thing, (the mother is always happy to volunteer her services, it's just that she seems to have trouble actually performing whatever service it is that she has volunteered for, i.e. she is supposed to be working on our employee manual, but since it's been seven months, I'm starting to lose hope) his response was that this was something that he actually wanted to get done, so I should be the one to do it. Which she didn't take very well. I don't know if you've ever actually seen a fifty year old woman pout, but it's not cute, and frankly, makes me uncomfortable. However, this was not my first experience with the pouting, so I just ignored it.

SO, around lunch time, I venture out and go to the jewelry (pawn) shop that he told me to, 20 miles across town. I get to the door, and they buzz me in and I explained to the gentleman that I needed a new battery for said watch and that I'd return shortly. He takes the watch, I go across the street to get lunch. After ordering my lunch, I went back to pick up the watch and pay for the repair, where the gentleman at the counter starts to explain to me that this watch, that he assumed is my watch, is solar powered, and that it will never need a new battery. He still charged me for taking it apart and cleaning it, and of course, they wouldn't accept the company credit card that's not in my name, so I paid with the last cash that I had in my pocket and had to abandon my lunch order in shame. Very proud of how quickly I had accomplished my mission, I returned the watch to his desk with a note about the solar, and have never heard about it again.

That was a mild case of run around, it gets worse.

How about this week.. My boss' wife was due to give birth to their first child, and they took her to the hospital to induce at the beginning of the week. Meanwhile, customers are calling, irate that the owner has not returned their calls for who knows how long, wanting to kill the messenger, that's me. So when he finally made his first debut in the office as a new father this morning, I had assumed that he would make the two calls that were obviously most urgent. You know what they say about assuming... anyways, before I even got the chance to ask him if he was going to call these people back, he told me to do it! And, it gets better, to make sure that I told them that he had a baby boy this week, and, here's the best part, and tell them that his wife had complications so he wouldn't be able to get back to them until sometime next week. Lie. She's fine, the baby is fine, he's been camped out in the hospital with them, etc. I swear some day I'm just going to answer the phone 'excuse department, how may I bullshit you today?' - In the mean time, he's asking me if I've updated my To Do List lately. aargh.