I had my two-year performance review at work today, and it got me thinking...

I started working for the state of Michigan back in February of 2001. At the time, I had two job leads, both in IT support. One was a very nice company outside of Detroit. The other was for the state. The state job had a starting pay of at least $10,000 less than the private company. However, the state position was also unionized, which meant a strict eight-hour work day with a regular lunch break.

Obviously, I went for the state job. Don't get me wrong, I like money. But I had already worked one higher stress IT job out in Nevada, and I found that the more mental energy I had to devote to my day job, the less I had left over for my writing.

During my performance review today, my manager mentioned that there would be opportunities to advance in my department. Right now I'm a customer support person, but I'm confident I could step up to become an application business lead, a higher position with more responsibility and better pay. All else being equal, I'm an ambitious enough guy, and I'd probably go for it.

But all else isn't equal. There's no way I'd get my daily hour-long writing lunch break if I was a lead. Some days, sure, but it would be inconsistent. Likewise, the hours would be longer, and the mental stress greater. And so, since my family is financially stable for the time being, I've got no interest in advancement. That feels strange to admit, like I'm somehow slacking or settling if I want to stay where I'm at while those around me (presumably) continue upward in the department.

Bottom line, some benefits are worth more than money. For me, time and mental energy for the writing are two of those benefits.

And a very happy birthday to jennreese

Most days, I'm pretty good at turning off my work brain and concentrating on the writing from 12:00 to 1:00, my lunch hour of writing time. I even have a sign I put on my chair that says, "I'm not here right now."

But some days -- when everything has been going wrong at work, and we've been going non-stop trying to keep up with incoming e-mails and phone calls -- it's hard to switch gears. That's one of the reasons I left a higher-stress job back in 2000. I need to be able to shut out the work stuff and focus on the story.

It took me about 15 minutes to stop watching the inbox and worrying about work today. Thankfully, this is a bit of a fluke. We've got a software migration going on in addition to a number of other crises. The whole week has been nuts, but today was the worst. I'm hoping today will remain the worst, and that the rest of the week will go a bit easier.

If not, well, you'll understand why there's a scene in the middle of the mermaid book where all of my characters suddenly descend on Washington and attack Microsoft headquarters...

So now Jamie's got a pretty nasty cold. He's all stuffed up, which means he doesn't eat as well, nor does he sleep as well ... thus resulting in me getting to bed after 11 last night, and then getting up every hour or so. Add to this Skylar's 2 am nightmare about a green woman, and I'm kind of surprised I made it in to work this morning. I'm half-tempted to use an hour of leave and sneak away for a nap. Unfortunately, I'm supposed to move a ton of computers today, so that's probably not going to happen. (They're supposed to be installed in my building, so naturally they were delivered to a different building a few miles away. I love my department.)

I just love trouble tickets that begin, "User needs administrative rites on his computer."

Got it. I'll break out the chicken bones and the ceremonial knives...