Get a job? Huh?

I can't speak for the other participants, but of course I have a job. I have the same job I've had for years - full time, full benefits, phat salary, pension, the whole nine yards. My job is so swank, in fact, that I don't need to work weekends - which gives me time to protest on the highway on a fine Saturday afternoon.

Mostly when people yell at me to "get a job" from the road, I just laugh. I do feel badly for the 3 million jobs lost since Bush got elected (mind you, no proof he's to BLAME for that, but the idea that he's engineering any sort of job INCREASE emits bogons) but so far, I'm doing just fine.

The Dog'n'Suds up by the strip malls has been closed for months, actually. I dunno if they were any good, as I've never eaten at a Dog'n'Suds anywhere. I hear they had good root beer floats.

In all honesty, I've never worked fast food. I have been a dishwasher (extra help at U of I, if anyone cares) but I've never done "the front half" of the restaurant biz, either waiting or cooking. When I was a dishwasher, I had to work weekends every other week or so.

Other than dishwashing, my employment has all been as either a translator (staff or freelance) or a computer programmer. In fact, I got into computer programming from a job where I started doing bilingual data entry for the place that currently powers the babelfish online translation stuff. Back then, of course, there was no web, but also back then, they hired on the basis of an exam. Our contracts were mainly for the Air Force and FBIS (Foreign Broadcast Information Service). Some of the European language software was used by Xerox to translate their manuals. Yep, we made machine translation software, such as it is. They still do.

These days, I'm still working as a programmer, and working for the U of I. Pay is good (granted, not as high as the private sector, but plenty enough for me, and on the good end of local averages), the work is quite interesting, and the benefits rock. I suppose in a way I do rely on the government for my livelihood, seeing as I'm a state employee paid out of state funds.

But hey - I'm part of that vaunted "information economy." Woooo!

So - no need to work weekends unless we're all really in a crunch for something or other to go live. That leaves lots of time to go hold signs on N. Prospect on a fine Saturday, with my other happily employed friends - farmers, professors, other programmers, business owners, and yes, even a few restaurant/fast food workers. Plus a coupla stay at home moms, some kids, a system administrator or two, and some students from U of I.

Most of the tax cut largesse I keep track of (particularly the one time checks we get from the Shrub) and save it up to fund people to go to various protests around. I can't usually go to the ones far from home as I have to work.