I envy you, Jeff. I really do. Your workplace adversary has stated his name, location, position and intentions. You may win or you may lose – but at least you’ll know whom you are fighting. I don’t have that luxury.

There is a crazed Nazi loose in my building hell-bent on anonymously ruining all that is sacred and holy. First they knocked out the sanctuary that was the bathroom and now they’re going in for the kill by doing the unspeakable. They’re fucking with the snack machine.

Everyone knows that work sucks…there’s just no getting around it. The bosses, the customers, the coworkers and the paperwork are enough to make any sane person head to the pawnshop in a fit of rage. For most of us, a few inexpensive perks are all that is necessary to appease the workplace psycho that dwells deep within.

For me, these perks include a hot cup of coffee, access to a select group of internet sites, a pack of cigarettes and an Abba Zabba or two. Four items. A retail value of about six freaking dollars. One-by-one, these items are vanishing like virginities on prom night and there’s not one damn thing I can do about it.

Coffee  We’ve never had free coffee here, but until recently we’ve always handled our coffee needs in the spirit of community and fairness. There used to be four or five strategically placed coffee pots throughout the building. Basically, you just ran to the store and picked up a tin of coffee when the supply ran out and you hadn’t bought for a while. It was always something simple like a plain can of Folgers – nobody ever got cute about it and brought in chocolate mocha surprise or anything. The importance of regular, hot coffee was understood and it only cost about $15 a year. But no more…one day word came down from on high that "someone" was worried that the coffee pots were a fire hazard – they could be turned on and off by simply toggling a switch and frankly, employees just couldn’t be trusted with that kind of authority. It was only a matter of time before the nuclear-scare-era-six-inch-concrete-wall-building-
complete-with-angled-blast-panels-over-the-windows in which we all worked was going down in flames. Never mind the fact that the building housed A FREAKING FIRE DEPARTMENT!!! Now we’ve got a company that trucks in fancy-assed, individually packaged coffee rations that is brewed one pot at a time into carafes that are impossible to get clean. If you aren’t first in line to brew your pot, you don’t get coffee until 10:30. What does this magnificent service cost the regular coffee drinker, you ask? I am proud to report that I have been saved from the flames of death for the low, low price of only 40 goddamned dollars a year. I swore I would never pay it. I would bring mine in a thermos if I had to. Once again, I was more lazy than angry and after a few weeks of forgetting the thermos, I reluctantly coughed up the $40. Fuckers.

Internet  Websense. I can always get around it if I absolutely have to, but not before slamming into the firewall like the Special Olympics on roller skates about a hundred times in a five minute span. I just know that there’s a bell in the I.T. office that rings every time I hit it. If you would just let me watch the video of the horse eating a cheeseburger and get on with my day, things would run a great deal more efficiently. Instead you force me to spend half an hour defeating your little babysitter. Unfortunately, it’s only a matter of time before I’m forced to explain my motivation for hitting the firewall 19 times just so that I could see a monkey sitting atop a couple of naked dudes. That should prove most interesting. So no internet.

Cigarettes  Everybody hates smokers because we’re the ones driving up the healthcare costs (it couldn’t possibly be the billions of dollars spent on prescription drug advertisements) and I doubt I’ll get any sympathy here, but damn…where can I smoke? I really don’t want to poison or otherwise inconvenience you, but I think we’ve made enough concessions. We’ve left the buildings. We no longer congregate outside the door so that you can walk into a building without choking to death. It’s gotten to the point that I have to drive out to the park and stand out in the middle of a field to enjoy an entire cigarette. So no nicotine.

I drive to work every morning nervously trying to figure out who is doing this to me and what they’re going to do next. Is my desk chair going to be replaced by an ergonomic apple crate? Are my pencils going to disappear in favor of some new-fangled triangular charcoal stick? I’m definitely not spending this time in an effort to invent new and innovative ways to better perform my professional duties.

When I arrived this morning and discovered this note, I had my answer. The final sacred cow was headed to slaughter. The vending machine…I have no doubt in my mind that it won’t even be a month before my precious overly-sugared, salted and priced pacifiers will vanish in lieu of sketchy produce and various bar-shaped products approved by Dr. Phil himself.

What is it that the witness on the evening news always says after some coworker goes from cubicle to cubicle, backhanding innocent people? I think it goes something to like this, "He was a good worker and always kept to himself. I never would have thought he was capable of something like this. He was completely unprovoked"

Did I mention that I need a new job? See you guys next week.

Love,

JRM