I mostly like my job. I work as a shipper in a warehouse, for a good company, with a good boss, and mostly good coworkers. The only downside is that I’m pretty much on my feet all day long, which gets less easier as I get older. But, other than that, I can’t really complain.

I’d say that one thing I don’t particularly like is that for our year-end bonuses, we get American Express gift cards. Mine was $500. Sure, that is nice but, frankly, I’d rather just get the money. The boss mentioned that she does this so we don’t have to get taxed on the bonus, which sounds logical, but I’d rather pay the tax and just get the actual money into my bank account. The problem with the AmEx card is that they don’t give you cash back, you can only spend the credit. And then there’s the fact that not every place takes AmEx, as I discovered the first time I tried to use it at a particular comic-book store. So if I’d just had the cash, I would have used it for stuff like bills, or to pay off one of my credit cards, but none of that was an option. So I mostly blew it on some entertainment stuff. Amazon takes AmEx, so I got a bunch of books and comics that I’d wanted. Also got some DVD’s, I got Expendables 2 (pretty good), Resident Evil: Retribution (pretty good), the remake of Total Recall (meh) Snow White & The Huntsman (haven’t watched it yet) and the DVD box-set of the Dilbert TV show (my favorite comic-strip). Target and Ralphs also take the card, so I’ve also bought groceries and stuff. This morning I stopped at Ralphs to pick up some food for the weekend, and spent $29, so I’m down to my last $3. Now what the frak am I supposed to do with that? Like I said, I can’t even just get three dollar bills for it, since there’s no cash back. Maybe I’ll check itunes, buy three .99 cent songs

Speaking of the weekend, we always just get New Years Day off at my job. So it sucks this year that it happens to fall on a Tuesday. So I’ve got the weekend off, then go back to work on Monday, then get Tuesday off, then back to work on Wed. That just feels so odd, to me. I’d rather have Monday off, to get a full 3-day weekend, and then work on New Years. Heck, I’m not doing anything, I’ll likely still be in bed by 10-11pm on New Years Eve, so what do I care? But I guess they want to avoid anyone being hung over, or just tired for late-night partying. Oh well. Again, I’m not really complaining. I know that, especially in this economy, there are plenty of folks who have no job at all, or a job that they really hate. So I’ve got a steady job that I mostly like, and am definitely grateful for that.

Enjoy your weekend, folks!