Today is 2-4-16, making this 39 years to the day since I knew I would not stay any longer in a particular job than it took for me to find another one. I spent much of that work day writing "bj received 2/4/77" in the top right corner of papers plonked in stacks on my desk by my then-boss. Papers dating back months. One I remember had on it a note from my boss telling me to have [another employee] attend a meeting in December. December! That long-past month. It wasn't that I objected to doing the work, although I was not a secretary. It was simply that I didn't intend to be blamed for meetings missed and jobs undone because the appropriate people were not notified. Was he trying to deflect the blame to me? So I dated each page, showing when I received it. My boss sometimes reeked of alcohol when he arrived at work at 8:00 in the morning and obviously had not been doing his job. Papers — obviously (again) — had been piling up on HIS desk for weeks. Nay, for months. Nothing ever came of those meetings missed and jobs not accomplished, at least nothing I ever knew about. But the date was indelibly imprinted on my mind by repeatedly writing "bj received 2/4/77."
Oh, right. You want to know how long I stayed after that. I finished the project I was working on at that place and started a new job in May as an editor of an in-house publication, making half-again more than the job I left.
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