"Have a Seat"

It's January 30, 2024, time for my RoundSeventeen Employee Review. 

Of course the date means nothing. If anything, I should hold this post off for a month or so, when RoundSeventeen will be celebrating its 15th anniversary of publishing inconsequential and irrelevant ramblings.

It means even less since the only employee here at the International Headquarters of RoundSeventeen, now with offices in Culver City and Palm Springs, is me.

Proving, that if I've done anything over the past 15 years, it's that I've been able to make word-hay out of nothing. Or as my father proudly told his friends when he was still alive and finally came around to accepting my chosen vocation as a writer, "my son makes a living from the luft."

Luft is German/Yiddish for Air.

EDITOR: While Rich has been dutifully consistent in his daily output, one can't help notice the posts are noticeably less ambitious in their scope as of late. Gone are the thematic approaches and the occasionally entertaining series. Who could forget:

* Drunken Haiku

* Things I will Never Understand

* People Who Should be Dead

* The Illuminati Scambaits

* Celebrities I Have Worked With

* Russian Online Dating

* Mara Lago Membership Application 

WRITER: Yes, dear reader, those were fun, but they're also part of a more adventurous past. When I was churning out material which could endear me with potential employers. When I was in the hunt. I'm not in the hunt anymore. I'm in the hammock.

EDITOR: That's exactly what I'm talking about. Now you're napping in the hammock. There was a time when you were enthralled by the hammock.

WRITER: In my defense...

EDITOR: I'm not interested in your defense. And neither are the 9 people who read this blog. Your friend George has 80,000 readers a months. You have 9. 

10 if you use a picture with cleavage.

WRITER: I'm close to 66 years old. Don't I get to enjoy the fruits of my labor?

EDITOR: The way you're spending money, buying art work, furniture and pool gadgets, you'll soon end up at the Holiday Villa Independent Living Home enjoying the vegetable lasagna.

WRITER: So I'm not getting a raise?

EDITOR: No.