I was very excited about the new job.  Everyone said Amalgamated Whistle Systems was a great company.  Everyone said the pay and benefits were great.  Everyone said it meant I was successful.  Everyone said I should consider myself extremely lucky.  Everyone said I should be, well, very excited.
    "Hi, I'm Mr. Pfister, your new boss," said Mr. Pfister, my new boss.  "You're very lucky to be working at the Information Technology division of Amalgamated Whistle Systems."
    "I know," I replied.  "Everyone says so.  I'm very excited."
    "Good, good," said Mr. Pfister.  "You should be.  Welcome to AWS*IT!  Now, here's the cubicle where you'll be spending the rest of your natural life.  Isn't it great?"
    It was great.  It wasn't any bigger than the cube at my previous job, but it was located at AWS, and I was so excited that I didn't notice the red, sticky substance on my new PC.  Not at first, that is.  When I bellied up to the keyboard, it was kind of hard to miss.  It was, as I said, red and sticky.  And it seemed to be oozing from every pore of both the monitor and the CPU.
    "My goodness!" I chirped.  "I didn't even know PCs had pores!"
    "Say what?"  The voice drifted over the cubicle partition.
    "Um, since I have your attention," I fumbled, "do you know anything about this red, sticky stuff on my PC? "
    "You must be new here," said the voice in a monotone.  "That's just the blood.  Welcome to AWS*IT."
    "Oh, thank you," said I.  "Isn't it exciting?"
    "Sure, sure," said the voice.
    But there  was something else rattling around in the back of my head, something that my excitement had temporarily shoved aside.  Oh, yeah ...
    "Whaddaya mean, just the blood!" I shrieked.
    "Oh, don't get so upset," droned the voice.  "It's just blood.  All the PCs have it.  Just boot up.  Windows 2000 overrides the bloodware.  It'll go away in a minute."
    Danged if she wasn't right.
    "Thanks," I said.  I was starting to get excited again.
    "Don't mention it," said the voice.  "You'd think they'd give the newbies a little training before turning them loose."

    "Ah, there you are!" beamed Mr. Pfister, poking his head into my cube.  "I have your first assignment.  There's a data field in a file that needs to be expanded from four characters to five."
    "That sounds simple enough," I said.
    "Of course it isn't," said Mr. Pfister cheerfully.  "You will have to cut three change tickets, survive three reviews, and gather at least 25 approvals.  And I'm sure there will be more.  I've probably forgotten a couple of things, and even if I haven't, we'll make a few more up as we go along."
    "Wow!  That's more fun than anyone should have changing a '4' to a '5'!  That ought to take a couple of months at least!" I said.
    "Absolutely!"  said Mr. Pfister enthusiastically.  "Your deadline is tomorrow."
    "Oh, good!"
    "Oh, yes.  I have a few other assignments here for you ..."

    I was just getting used to the blood thing, along with the evening and weekend hours, when another nonstandard event occurred.  As I was clattering away on the keyboard, my monitor began spinning around uncontrollably.  At the same time, a green, viscous substance in the pea soup class began spewing from my floppy drive.
    "Yikes!" I screamed.  "What's going on here?"
    "Now what?" asked the voice from the other side of the partition.
    "Help!  My PC is puking on me!"
    "Oh, that," said the voice.  "Just reboot.  It'll go away.  Don't be such a weenie."
    Danged if she wasn't right again.
    "Gee, thanks," I said.
    "Oh," droned the voice.  "A word to the wise:  If you never turn your PC off, you never have to deal with the blood thing."
    "Except when I have to reboot to get rid of the spinning and the pea soup," I said.
    "Of course."
    "Say," I continued.  "We've been chatting over the partition for a few weeks now, and you've been a big help to me, but we've never been introduced."  I introduced myself.
    "I'm Sadie," droned the voice, without interest.
    "I appreciate your always being there when I need you, Sadie," I said.  "Uh, you do seem always to be there."
    "I am," she said.
    "How is that possible?  What do you eat?"
    "Intravenous caffeine drip," she said.
    "Well, that in itself is too bizarre for words," I said cheerily.  "How's your health holding up?"
    "You mean besides the surgeries, the chemotherapy, the high blood pressure, and the depression?  Fine."
    "But how do you manage to keep so, so ... calm, so ... zombie-like."
    "Probably the meds," she said.

    "I have another small assignment for you," said Mr. Pfister brightly one bright morning.
    "Oh, goody!" I exclaimed.
    "It seems that we've been running an obsolete version of a program for the last five years."
    "Oh, my!" I said.  "Didn't anyone notice?"
    "Not till now," he said.  "I want you to fix it."
    "And how am I supposed to do that?"
    "Fortunately, we have the correct version of it sitting out on disk.  Systems accidentally copied it to the wrong location, so the previous version is still in production."
    "Oh, good," I said.  "So, Systems just has to copy the correct program to the correct place.  Uh, where do I come in?"
    "Oh, Systems can't do anything without a change ticket.  You have to cut the ticket."
    "Ok," said I.  "That doesn't sound too hard."
    "And then you have to request that the program be moved to a staging area so Systems can get to it."
    "But I thought they could already get to it," I quibbled shamelessly.  "Oh, ok.  I can do that, I guess.  Uh, I don't think I have access to the area where the program is now."
    "No, you don't," said Mr. Pfister.  "You'll have to check the program out first.  Then you can stage it."
    "Gee, I guess they could just copy the program from one place to another, but then I wouldn't get to exercise all these procedures, huh?"

    No sooner had I gotten a handle on the blood, the long hours, the pea soup, and the stifling bureaucracy, than another unusual incident occurred.  I had just rebooted following another soup-spitting exercise, when the file I was editing was blotted out by a ghastly, demonic face.  "Get out!" it roared at me.
    Now, I admit I was somewhat taken aback, but by this time I was kind of getting used to the drill.
    "Sadie!" I called.  "What do you do about the ugly face?"
    "Oh, just turn down your sound and ignore it," droned Sadie.  "It'll go away."
    "I will not!" protested the demon.  "Say, what do you mean, 'ugly?'"
    "Well, have you ever looked at yourself in a mirror?  I thought not.  Now, clear out.  I've got work to do."
    "Don't change the subject!" he squealed testily.  "Get out!!!"  He had good volume, but he lacked conviction.  I turned down the volume.
    "Stop that!  Stop that!" he protested squeakily.  Then he was gone.
    A few minutes later, I heard a light tapping coming from the screen of my monitor.  When I looked up, there was my demon face again, a few shades paler and a great deal less scary.  He was doing an exaggerated bit of charades,  pawing at the screen and making nibbling motions with his mouth.  I felt a little sorry for him.
    "Mouse?" I offered.
    He shook his head vigorously up and down and smiled almost pathetically.  Then he worked his mouth, as if talking, and gestured at his mouth.
    "Take my mouse and turn up the volume so you can talk?"
    Vigorous affirmative head shaking.  Aw, what the heck.  I upped the sound a little.
    "Thank you," said the demon.  "Now, get out!"
    I said not a word, but reached for the mouse.
    "Wait, wait, wait!" he screeched.  "Dang!  You people don't know how to take a hint!"
    "Look, what's it to you, anyway?  Is there an ancient Indian burial ground beneath this building?  Is this some satanic hot spot or what?"
    "What are you, an idiot?  Look at yourself, for Pete's sake!  When was the last time you saw sunlight?  When was the last time you heard the telephone ring without popping a blood vessel in your brain?"
    "It pays well," I said.
    "You're going to kill yourself, you numbskull!" shrieked the demon.
    "It's very prestigious," I said.
    The demon howled piteously.  "You're going to ruin your health!  Everyone here is on major meds!"
    "Great benefits," I said.
    "Look, I can't let you people go on working here."
    "Why not?" I asked.
    "Because what would you have to look forward to?  Hell would hold no surprises for you.  What kind of punishment is it if hell is more congenial than the place you just left?  You'll think you died and went to Club Med for Pete's sake!"
    "So, how is that my problem?" I probed.
    "Come on!" he pleaded.  "Have a heart!  I have a boss, too.  And deadlines!  If I don't move you people out of here by Friday COB, it's my ass.  This project has slipped six times already!  I can't have another unsatisfactory performance appraisal.  I'll be put on a Performance Improvement Plan.  Maybe even fired!  Not only that, but I'll have to fill out a new request for this project and schedule another review.  You don't know what that's like!"  He paused for a moment.  "Oh, I guess you do.  Um, think about your health!"
    "I am," I said.  "My company health insurance will pay for all the surgeries and medications.  Just ask Sadie.  Think of all the benefits I would be wasting if I quit!"
   That got him.  His face puffed up like a balloon and exploded with a hideous shriek.

    Shortly after that, all the blood and pea soup and stuff went away.  Then one day, Mr. Pfister came in with a new employee.
    "This is Mr. Damon," said Mr. Pfister brightly.
    The new guy's scowl looked vaguely familiar.
    "Now I know what a really bad performance review gets you," he growled.