So, ok, my work, right? Well, it allows you to access many different kinds of sites without much restriction. Like news and business and, well, other generic stuff that some jarhead gets off on. But they don’t let you access personal email. Recently Gmail was added to that list. After two years of using gmail, and in turn associating it as my main email account and even bringing other people to use it as such, it has been put on the banned list.

Yes, my work banned Gmail. While using Gmail on Wed. I was tagged as “abusing the system with a webpage that bypasses security measures of the network” (read also: using gmail). So, I wasn’t told, “Hey, cut that out,” or “We know people do it, just, like you know, stop it.” No. I had my entire history of internet usage pulled and printed out and put into a giant binder (three of them) and laid out on a table which I was called to. Apparently while I could go to CNN or MSN News, I can’t go to Next-Gen.biz, or even The Gamer’s Quarter website. (Though I was later told that, while this doesn’t explicitly break the policy, that it is “frowned upon.”) So I got to sit in on a 45 minute session of getting told how to work better and not “play around” on the internet so much.

Well, seriously, I get all of my work done. Not only that, but I also get it done with less than a 5% error rate (which is among the highest of the staff) and usually before the deadline. So, now, I have had to switch desks and am in the middle of the whole office with my back facing just about everyone. I feel like I am simultaneously in prison and in High School. Were I not under contract I would have handed in my resignation today.

So, I am left to fend for myself. I am now using my cell phone to check my email though m.gmail.com, which makes things … well, bad. The forums that I use to kill 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there or just to have something to keep my mind busy while multi tasking away the mind-numbingly easy day I have here will not get me into more trouble than I care to explain. So, I have to think up a plan. I have worked very hard for the past two years to put the Gamer’s Quarter together and am not going to throw that away because of a job I hate and can’t get out of.

I am writing this in a word document and will then email it to myself here shortly. I can’t save the damn document because then it can be viewed by the system admin (who will be “keeping a close eye on me.”) I’m tired of this shit and can’t deal with it much longer. I highly anticipate school and will now beat the system by using the system. I am probably going to switch cell phone carriers and get something like a treo or a side-kick, because, bizarrely enough, those are authorized. I will still be able to keep in touch, and informed. I will be able to type and forward things that way. It will be fucking infantile but I will do it. I will also be using the computer to spend a lot of time looking to further my education, because again, that too is authorized.

Sorry for bitching, and sorry also if it seems like I have fallen off the face of the earth, because I haven’t, I’ve just fallen off the face of the internet.

APPEND:

So apparently after all this happen the admin that caught the Gmail usage happen to overhear me making fun of the internet usage training which was coincidentally given on the same day that I got caught. The training had this horrible overacting with exaggerated hand motions and other bullshit. So while smoking I was just going over the video with a friend and making these even more exaggerated motions with my hand.

Obviously I was not making fun of the atrocious acting, I was making fun of him.

I then found out later that he was pissed. He went to the head of my division and bitched me out, then the head of the division went to my boss, who bitched me out. I tried to explain the situation, went further up to the division boss and explained things, then ended up talking to the guy and explaining things and apologizing for everything in front of the division head. Needless to say that this was turning into the worst fucking day of my life (work related anyways).

So, things continue to just … suck. Then when work is over I go downstairs to bitch about things while smoking before I catch the train, and right after my friend says, “Seriously, Matt, the wall have ears here.” guess who pops outside? Yes, dude that busted me (twice now).

Well, we got to talking and we straightened a few things out: 1) The policy is crap and he was handed down the order to get my boss’ involved in the email thing. 2) Don’t worry about the other web access stuff. 3) I was actually making fun of bad acting, he watched the video later.

So all in all… the day was not a complete ruin, but I don’t think it could get much worse.

I am now going to play (motherfucking)DOOM on my 360.