Kryptonite

I�m stressing out, and for once my sleepless nights and stomach cramps are not caused by my bastard bosses. It�s instead the result of a certain other bastard whose diary I�ve been addicted to lately. His nicest comment about my diary for his profile was that it was �kinda slow�. Ouch. Have I really become that boring and predictable? Unfortunately, yeah, I think he�s got it summed up pretty well.

I don�t think it was always this way. I�ve become convinced that my career is sucking the creative juices right out of me through my petite button nose, along with my personality and any shred of ability to tell a good story that I may have once been clutching onto.

I�ve been doing a lot of looking around and observing at work lately, and I�ve noticed that I�m the only one in the office with South Park dolls, Kermit the frog, a talking Dilbert, and a memo on my wall entitled �Ode to FUCK� � an exquisitely written observation about the many varied and wonderful uses of the word �fuck�. I�m the only one with anything remotely humorous in their cubicle or office. It�s not that I have the greatest sense of humor in the world, but, hey, at least I try.

The younger people in the office are somewhat normal and funny and well rounded people, despite having chosen to be mathematicians. We all get along well and there are no strange pauses in conversations where suddenly no one knows what to say. It�s just like working with normal people. But the older crowd, eesh. There�s the guy who went out on psych disability 8 years ago, and then was rehired this year despite a decidedly poor attempt at mental recovery. He looks like a child molester, plain and simple, and he spends his days muttering loudly in his cubicle and joining in every conversation within earshot, even though no one acknowledges that he's speaking. There�s the guy who wears the conservative tie to work every single day even though we have casual dress policies and he�s the most under appreciated and most disgruntled employee we have. He wanders from cubicle to cubicle all day long, never doing any work and instead distracting productive people with rhetoric about what a great employee he is. Apparently the tie is enough to warrant the title.

We have people that choke on their own phlegm because they forget to swallow on time. We have people that have never said one single word without giving those around them the creeps. We have people that will stand outside of their own secretary�s cubicle unnoticed and silent, waiting patiently for her to notice their existence, but too afraid to knock or make any noise for fear of enraging her. We have actuaries.

And I�m becoming one of them. For my next exam, I am studying from three very large three ring binders full of Internal Revenue Code that I have to memorize and interpret. At the end of each two hour study session, I feel myself becoming less like the younger crowd of normal kids and more like the older crowd of completely awkward and dysfunctional human beings we employ. I haven�t identified the reason behind it, nor can I locate the antidote, so slowly I continue to slip into the depths of inept disposition. Each day, my jokes are met increasingly with looks of bewilderment rather than laughter, and each day my writing becomes more bland and harder to write.

The IRS is my kryptonite, and you, my diary, are probably destined to suffer most. What�s a geeky mathematician to do? Do I just give in to my own cultural death, or do I rage against the dying of the light-hearted banter? I�ll have to decide tomorrow, for today, I have to spend my Saturday memorizing Internal Revenue Code 1.410(b)-(6)(d)(2)(ii)(E).