Blog of the Day
Seattle Weekly staffer Philip Dawdy has a blog: Furious Seasons. It’s actually a good read, and I was amazed to discover that Philip and I are in agreement about Scientology, pot, and some other issues. There are also lots of interesting posts about metnal illness. Furious Seasons doesn’t have permalinks, so you’ll just have to go read through the whole thing to get Philip’s thoughts on these and other issues.
Philip’s blog also offers some insight into morale at ye olde Seattle Weekly:
Why am I doing this? Why am I on this earth? Why am I a writer and not a stockbroker? Why am I never going to get ahead? And so on. I had planned to ask those sorts of broad, public questions earlier today when I posted my 200th entry on this blog. But I spaced it. And now I am on post #204 or something like that. In terms of words, that works out to over 40,000 words—the length of a short book—in less than six months. That’s on top of my day job, where I have churned out 30,000 words in the same period. 70,000 words. Why do I do it? What does it get me? How does it improve my life to work that hard?It doesn’t sadly. This was driven home to me in a few ways today. One, my bosses declined to pay for treatment to a muscle injured suffered on the job due to an improper workstation and my insurance won’t cover it and worker’s comp will take forever and they’ll likely fight it, even though the fix is $300 to $400. Basically I was told to stuff it. I pointed out to my bosses in my emailed reply that my salary hasn’t kept pace with inflation. I got 3 percent last year and that’s what I have been told to expect this year…. What’s more, my rent has gone up 10 percent this year, my student loan payment has gone up by 20 percent and now much of my raise will go to dealing with something my bosses should be footing the bill for….
I know I should be blogging about how the US Senate just passed a bill undoing all the mental health parity in the 35 states that have it, but I need a drink.
It’s a not a stiff drink, but maybe a picture of a workstation at The Stranger will make Philip feel better about his workstation at Seattle Weekly. This is Bradley Steinbacher’s desk. Brad’s been with The Stranger for 13 years. So has his chair.
I think i see Jaegermeister and Fat Tire on Bradley's desk. Those should more than make up for any other shortcomings of his workstation.