Work Sucks

It is high time, as a teller of uncomfortable truths, I admitted one of the most obvious: the commune sucks. Or perhaps I should clarify that working at the commune sucks. The distinction might be thought important by some.

Shit you I do not, as Yoda might say. I admit my role in working at the commune has changed several times over the years, and more often than not I am a background character, like the old man who hung out at Cheers, but when brother Gay loomed his large, smarmy head in a few months ago and made a play to take over the publication, I put my nose to the grindstone and basically skinned the hell out of my nose. I worked extra hard, 24-7, 24 minutes of every hour, 7 hours a day, and this shit was not for me, sir. I am not made for a 7-hour work day. I don't know how everyone else here manages the five they do.

I will accept I perhaps have it better than some others, since I own the whole shebang, at least if I can keep Gay at bay, and I receive all the profits, should we ever make any. But it does not change the fact work completely sucks. The severe sucking nature of work cannot even be disputed at this point.

When I started the commune, or changed it from a quarterly Indian reservation newsletter to an alternative news publication, I only wanted to spread as much of the truth as I saw it as I could fit onto the back of pamphlets lifted from teen centers and free clinics. It was fun then, before I had a staff, a budget to be concerned with, and deadlines to heed. I sometimes wish I could go back to those days. Me and Sully, experimenting with mind-expanding medicinal herbs while I wrote my first column about how the 1969 moon landing was just an elaborate Tonight Show sketch aired out of context. Before I had snippy copy-editors knocking on my door to tell me I misspelled simple words and spilled bongwater on all my pages.

Gay Bagel, of course, challenged the commune to show profit as part of his new job as Ulterior Motive Manager, Class VII, and I thought the natural solution was to do what we do that wasn't showing a profit more often and at greater expense. So I took the commune to a weekly schedule and included extra pairs of irregular-fitting jeans as an pay incentive every week. All that has done, it seems, is give me more work to do. Gay doesn't know the first thing about publishing an alternative news website—have fun! The second thing being, of course, never malign Carol Burnett without ample photo evidence to back you up. But the first thing has been completely lost under Herr Bagel. Herr Bagel being Gay, instead of me, for once.

These days I'm in the office up to six days a week, instead of six times a month with the old commune management style. In a way, I suppose I feel I have to answer to Gay now when before I had no boss, I was able to just hang out in my office whenever I felt like it, pants or no pants. After all, if I don't show a major increase in profits, meaning make a profit of any type soon, he'll resume his legal battle to take over the commune again.

Bah. If I had half a brain in my head, which my staff is quick to assure me I do, I would let him have the damn commune. Dig Sully out of those boxes I packed him up in and light up the peace pipe once more. Go back to the old desktop publishing guerilla-style journalism I started with.

Still, I suppose things aren't all that bad. After all, if I can reach one reader, inform him of the deadly conspiracies and hidden injustices of this world, all my work has been worth it. And according to last month's website statistics, we finally successfully reached that one reader.

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