can we talk about how i tried to quit my job yesterday and damn near came out with a promotion?  what. the hell.  how can anyone be THAT unsuccessful at quitting something?  seriously, i started out all "i can't work past january," and before i knew it was promising to let my manager know when i'm home so he an get me signed up to move to freaking seattle or something.  this is not good.  and the worst part is that for the first time ever i know EXACTLY what i want to do in this situation (which is NOT to work at starbucks for the rest of my life) but i couldn't even tell him that.  i mean, how exactly does one say "i'm sorry, but i can't even imagine how empty my life would be if i devoted it to a company whose greatest aspiration is to make a really swell cup of coffee" without indirectly implying that the manager who HAS devoted himself to the "swell coffee" cause leads an empty and meaningless life?  that's just not a very nice thing to say to your boss.  so instead i settled for very subtle and reserved hints implying i would never say yes (which, interestingly enough, isn't the same thing as saying no).  this, in turn, posed the problem of being TOO subtle and reserved to get the point across to a guy i've only met about four times before.

i told him my degree wasn't in management.

he told me i didn't even need a degree.

i wanted to point out that that is just about the last thing he should tell someone who's worked her ass off for the last four years in college. it's not exactly gonna make me want to move to seattle or anything.

anyway, it went on like this (with him having an answer to each of my half-assed attempts to say no) WAY past the limits of my attention span, until it got to the point where i'm not entirely clear on what i've agreed to, but i'm pretty sure it involves someone else owning my soul for a while.  i love those types of meetings.