Tikkabik

Holy shit, it's back and it doesn't suck this week.

1. What do you do for a living?

Short answer: I'm a writer.

2. What do you like most about your job?

There are almost too many things to count here. If I had to distill it down to one thing, thought, it's that I get to do what I love (writing) in an industry I really love (the Mac).

3. What do you like least about your job?

Because we're a daily news site, there's *constant* pressure to make sure we're on top of our game. It's no different than it is at any other newsroom, I suppose, but the grind does get to you after a while -- the big advantage of this gig is that we can do it from our own home offices and telecommute, which makes a big difference. I suspect I'd like this job less if I was stuck in a cube-farm.

We have a really small staff, so that pace is relentless and it requires an obsessive personality to stay on top of everything. Even when I'm not at work, I'm usually thinking about work -- what I did wrong, what I could have done better, what I can do tomorrow or next week.

4. When you have a bad day at work it's usually because _____...

Typically one of two reasons: I've let things get out of control because of my patently inadequate organizational skills, or someone's written something very unkind or very negative that I take personally even though it is, 99 times out of 100, not directed at me specifically. I shouldn't let either thing get under my skin, but sometimes they do, and I'm inevitably ashamed about it after the fact.

5. What other career(s) are you interested in?

Bacon tester. Coffee taster. Parachute tester. Baghdad traffic cop. Taffy puller. Rodeo clown. Cetacean orthodontist. Human cannonball.

Seriously, every plausible career alternative I come up with gives me a headache to think about after I consider all the possible complications or drudgeries associated with it.

So I figure whatever I do, it has to involve writing somehow, because it's about the only thing I've ever done as a career that I actually look forward to doing when I wake up every morning. Most people *don't* feel that way about their jobs, so I consider myself blessed.