You Know You Need a New Job When...

...when at any time of day you can spot about 10 people outside the company buildings talking quietly on their cellphones. It's either their headhunter, a potential employer, or a family member calling to console them during their break. You can't make any sort of private call in this cube farm. I can hear the lady in the cube next door to mine eating a tuna sandwich. And tuna sandwiches don't make much noise. It's a very quiet and oppressed place. Managers have doors and windows on their cubes. But no roofs. Their cubes are still connected to the rest of the maze, they're just bigger and have the illusion of privacy.

My current gig is with an in-house creative department for a large corporation. To make sure the employees aren't wasting time on non-company things, this corporation has contracted with a firm known as Websense. "Websense is a global leader in internet filtering and web security solutions to help companies productively use the internet."

Websense sucks.

Most blogs I can't see from work, especially Wordpress blogs, where I am met with:
Category "Social Networking and Personal Sites" is filtered.

Some blogs I can get to, but following a link about a "ghostly cup of coffee," I am met with this message:
Category "Non-Traditional Religions and Occult and Folklore" is filtered.

The Best Page in The Universe is blocked with this message:
Category "Tasteless" is filtered.

Anything on YouTube gets you this:
Category "Illegal or Questionable" is filtered.

The website Something Awful, where the Your Band Sucks feature is pretty fun, is a serious non-no:
Category "Adult Content" is filtered.

I understand corporate America's desire to squeeze the last ounce of productivity out of their employees, but when you prevent them from having any fun whatsoever, particularly when their department is called "Creative Services," you're kind of screwing yourself.

I can understand blocking porn, maybe hate groups and sites that teach you how to make bombs, but when you call Maddox "tasteless," that's clearly just a matter of opinion.

Whatever Happened to Maddox?

No, not the adopted trophy son of Angelina and Brad...

James H was paying his respects to the King of the Snark Bloggers, George Parker, when I was reminded of Maddox, who used to write one of the funniest, most brutal sites on earth.* Then he wrote a book and went on tour and now he updates only once in great while. I guess his book did very well. Wikipedia says he's trying to get into radio.

If you've never seen More Crappy Children's Artwork , you should check it out. You'll feel guilty for laughing, but you won't be able to help yourself.

*"Funny" and "Brutal" are, of course, subject to your interpretation. Some people find him crude, offensive and stupid. But that's what usually makes me laugh.