Curveball

"Fate doesn't hang on a wrong or right choice;

Fortune depends on the tone of your voice."

-- Ben Folds, "Songs of Love"

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Gotta give credit where credit's due. Curveball, which can be found on AddictingGames.com, got me through my first semester of college, and right now, it's getting me through some long and boring days at work.

My boss has seen fit, in anticipation of structural reorganization of the staff, to require everyone to create, update and submit hourly diaries. In true Office Space form, we now have to account for all the hours we are at work, to prove that we are earning our salaries.

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I spent the greater part of today writing a rejection letter to the children who auditioned for our summer program but didn't get in. I guess it's more accurate to say I spent a half-hour writing it, and the greater part of today getting it copy-edited.

It's the kind of letter that has to be broadly specific, so that each reader feels as if he/she received personal criticism, even though you just change the name at the top and print dozens of them off.

They're signed, sealed, and as soon as they're delivered, they're theirs.

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An oddity of this place (one among many) is that we are paid on the first of the month instead of every two weeks, and this paycheck is given in advance of the month; in other words, we get paid for February on February 1st. The result of this cumbersome (IMO) practice is the rhetoric we endure as employees--namely, that we are indebted to our employer for so many hours' worth of work. We have been paid, say, for 160 hours of work in a month, and we must spend the next four weeks filling our quotas. Now, the numbers are basically the same as in systems where people are paid after the work they do, but the language of obligation is very different.

And now that we have to account for all our work time (filling out the spreadsheet entitled "Hourly Diary" takes about fifteen minutes, and yes, we are required to note that time as well), we all feel very, very watched.

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Was part of a photo shoot with the Enquirer. The subject of the shoot was the director of Jack & the Beanstalk, and we needed two people to stand in the cow costume while the photographer clicked away. (There's a tap-dancing cow in the show.)

Guess who was the cow butt?

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It's beyond the accounting of hours. My boss is now searching through our server files to make sure we are updating the diaries throughout the day--"If you don't record what you did as soon as it's done," she says, "then it becomes fantasy."

Needless to say, my Curveball breaks will not be on this week's hourly diary.