Eighteen months ago, I started working at the University of Michigan as a professor of nuclear physics.

Okay, okay. I was not a professor of nuclear physics; my job was nowhere near as mundane and pedestrian as that. No, I was one of the thousands of people who allow those professors to be mundane and pedestrian. Without me, those professors would just be highly-educated unemployed people.

Anyway, for the last eighteen months, I’ve seen this sight every workday morning:

And my co-workers have seen this sight every workday:

Except there would normally be a lot more paper on my desk, and as the self-proclaimed Minister of Menial Tasks and Other Minutiae, I would normally look like I was hard at work. I mean, I would normally be hard at work. Yeah. That’s what I meant.

For those eighteen months, I was a temp, and as such, unlike many elected officials, I was subject to term limits. So, at 3:30 PM on Tuesday, 06 March 2007, I joined the ranks of the highly-educated unemployed. (But without the highly-educated part.) And now my former co-workers see this sight:

(Only without the sweatshirt, since I have that with me right now.)

Who knew a chair could look so lonely?