Morning work schedule.

Every morning, I have to read the education-related news and send some of it out to my colleagues (if it's related to the work our branch does, which is technology stuff). This is called "environmental scanning" since "morning news checking and reading and sending" sounds silly. This means that approximately 3.5 times a week on average, I read an editorial about how ALBERTA TEACHERS ARE AN EXPLOITATIVE, WHINY BURDEN ON TAXPAYERS and THEY ONLY WORK 50 HOURS A YEAR and THEY ALREADY GET PAID MORE THAN EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD and TEACHING CHILDREN IS EASY DON'T YOU KNOW THAT and YOU KNOW WHAT'S EVEN WORSE THAN UNIONS? TEACHERS' UNIONS! and so on in the EDMONTON SUN. And then I spend the next ten minutes fuming at my desk and WRITING THINGS IN ALL-CAPS.

No job should make you read the Edmonton Sun. It's inhumane. It is an affront to my liberal democratic values and a painful reminder that the province where I live is not the place I imagine it to be.

In fact, since Metro came to Edmonton (one of those free daily papers that is funded by advertising and contains news items such as "PARIS HILTON LIKES KITTENS, SAYS INSIDE SOURCE"), the Edmonton Sun has been giving out free papers downtown as an effort to compete, I think, and gain new readers. Except these attempts always backfire with me. Not only will I not read the Edmonton Sun for free, I would not read it if THEY PAID ME $5. I would read it for $10 though, I'm not crazy. But then I would make fun of it on my blog.