Hodgepodge posting. No rhyme or reason. You have been warned.

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To quote Dilbert, "I love my job, it's the work that I hate." My job has a fantastic work environment (even if I have to share an office.) Free soda and milk. Free Starbucks coffee, fresh ground / brewed. I feel valued, I feel (even though I know better) that the company really cares about my happiness. As a result, I'm loyal, a hard worker, and drive myself to do my best.

Of course the fact that I have insanely good medical benefits is another motivator. My family is very high-maintenance. We see doctors and specialists (varying, not the same one) at least monthly, if not weekly. We're all on sustaining medications. Any other job, the co-payments would have nickled-and-dimed us to fiscal worries, if not outright troubles.

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I don't want my job to become my identity. I had that happen when I was starting out in the tech field. I wanted to be an uber-geek. My work was me, and my family was ... well a convenience at best, a distraction most of the time, and a nuisance at worst.

No, that's not a good way to live. "No one, on their deathbed, ever wished that they worked longer." Or somesuch.

However, these days, I work many hours. Even when I'm not at work, I find my thoughts drifting back to work. Where my component's test holes are. Neat and new areas / methods to test my component. Documentation and process-workflow tools for my tests, in case I move on.

I don't like it. I know why I do this, because I'm scared of life without these benefits. I know that I do this, because I self-monitor as a matter of course. I see it, I understand it, but I don't like it.

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I think about thinking often. As an Aspie, I have to self-censor a lot. You wouldn't believe the crassness and short-sighted thoughts my brain puts out. I've learned to self-censor out of necessity. From constantly examining what I'm about to do or say, it's a short step to asking "why I feel the impulse to do or say this."

I also think about thinking because I know I don't think the same way as others. I know I, to steal the Apple advert from a few years back, "think different(ly.) I always have to try to map that into something closer to normal. Mr. Square Peg, meet Ms. Round H... uh, never mind.

That said, I suspect the reflexive reflection and eternal role-play (pretending to be normal) means I can also project myself into others' thought processes a little. Sometimes I surprises both of us when I do so (conscious effort) and then say or do something that is utterly "like them."

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Where am I going with this? Dunno. Just wanted to splat some stuff up on the screen for today.