Dear Santa,

It might be a little late to be asking this, and I'm sorry I always blow right past you at the mall these days, but if it's at all possible, I would very much like it if you brought me a new job for Christmas. In my (obviously biased) opinion, I have been a very good girl this year. I have done the responsible thing and NOT quit on any of the 457 occasions I have desperately wanted to this year. Heck, I haven't even really thrown any tantrums or stormed out of the office. I have found the restraint (God knows where) to sit quietly and stew rather than tell my bosses what morons they are, and what an appallingly bad newspaper they're running. I put colored boxes around color photos and on top of that put text in the photo without so much as a peep most days, even though it wrenches my gut. I've given up arguing when the decision is made to make some lame-ass, full-of-holes local story our lead even though an actual big story is happening somewhere else and will lead every other paper on the planet. I invoke Buddha-nature to let it slide when every committee I get "volunteered" for here goes bust and things just continue as they always have. I watch the powers that be embrace mediocrity rather than use their power to overcome it, and I say nothing. Not because I think saying and doing nothing is the right way to go, mind you Santa. But my previous attempts at saying and doing have accomplished zero, and then there's the fact that I don't like this paper enough to bother anymore.

So shouldn't my silent suffering and lack of workplace violence be enough to earn a new job, Santa? I don't ask for much. At this point, I'd be happier pouring coffee (and I don't even like coffee!) than working here. Yes, it's so bad I'd leave journalism just get out. So why don't I just do that, eh? Just tell 'em take this job and shove it and see what other job -- any job -- I can find? Ah, good question. I guess my spirit is not quite crushed to the point where I could leave journalism without terrible, weighing fear of never being able to get back in. I guess where you come in, Santa, is finding me a way out of this particular job before it's so bad that the thought of leaving journalism behind entirely doesn't bother me anymore.

Oh, and a pony.

-- Stacy