March 21, 2002 | 12:21 PM

7V)### Thurston St.

Bliss has meandered right out of my life.

Literature. Film. Music. Art. Like small children at a county fair, I let go of their hands and they wander away. There is no time. No time for silly things like poetry and record shopping and museum browsing.

No energy either.

Must be a productive member of the Stupid Company. Must earn love and respect of The Stupid Company. Must climb the slippery solid gold ladder of corporate America to its morally ambiguous apex. Must get that promotion. Must not fuck up. Must not cry when am scolded for things that in any other universe couldn�t possibly be deemed my fault.

And that is why. Why I, Anna, am slowly but surely, losing my mind.

This is me, Anna, for chissakes. I voted for Ralph Nader twice. I�m a card carrying member of the ACLU and I support labor rights. Roger & Me is my favorite movie. What in God�s name am I doing working for the Enemy? What am I doing devoting my life to �Actionable Teleresearch�?

Almost every waking hour is spent at The Stupid Company. And the rest of the time is spent drinking to make being at The Stupid Company more bearable. I am supposed to leave work at 5PM, but I seldom get out before 6. A couple nights a week I�m there until 7:30. And forget weekends. Since LonnieMcMormon and EvilRene have come to power, weekends have ceased to exist.

Often on a Thursday or Friday afternoon, EvilRene will walk into our department and announce with a grandiosity more befitting an opera stage than a dinky little marketing research firm,

Project LM32 has just been given the go ahead and the client wants it completed by Monday.

Seth protests.

Well, I understand that the client would like the project by that time. However, we still have four other projects in the field that have tight deadlines, and with the projected rate, I don�t see how we can finish everything.

EvilRene tosses her honey dyed mop of hair and flashes her perfect corporate teeth. In her Trixie-esque* whine, reminiscent of Minnie Mouse by way of Bea Arthur, Evil Rene says,

Well then you�re just going to have to make it happen. You�ll have to work over the weekend.

Again Seth protests.

EvilRene, we can�t force the Interviewers to come in and work without prior notice. They�re contract employees. Since we can cut their hours, and do at any time when there isn�t enough work, we can�t tell them they have to come in two days in advance, especially on a weekend. That�s been the policy here forever.

EvilRene is outraged.

You have to instill a sense of pride and discipline in the Interviewers. They have to feel like they are a part of this company and if we need them to work, then they work.

EvilRene turns on her fascist pink high heel and storms back to her office where she will spend the rest of the day playing on the internet and talking on the phone to her meat-headed date-raping fratboy husband. (EvilRene�s mouse pad is a picture of her and her husband skiing�how perfectly suburban!)

Did I mention that EvilRene is a Vice President at The Stupid Company and she makes a whole lotta moola even though no one else has ever seen her working, much less has any idea of what she actually does at the Stupid Company? Did I mention that not only does EvilRene have the IQ of a seedless grape, she is completely and utterly evil?

After she leaves, I turn to Seth.

I know a way we could instill discipline and pride in the interviewers. We could pay them more than 8 bucks an hour. Who the fuck does that woman think she is? She should fucking come down here and make phone calls for forty hours a week at poverty level wages, no benefits, have her hours cut anytime based on how many clients we have, and be treated like absolute shit by everyone in management. The irony is that without the interviewers, there would be no Stupid Company. They are the heart and soul of the Stupid Company. This whole thing makes me sick.

Seth is weary. He often works twelve-hour days and as the de-facto ruler of the department, takes the heat from all sides. Poor guy. He was a creative writing major in college, and worked as an interviewer for beer money. He�s so smart and well spoken and efficient that he just keeps getting promoted up and up through the ranks, to his own detriment. I love Seth and I understand why he isn�t keen on championing the rights of the Interviewers, many of whom (let�s be honest now) really are huge pains in the ass.

Anna, I don�t know. All I know is we have to finish this fucking idiot project or we will all be in deep shit, and we need to rally the interviewers to work this weekend. Oh, and I guess that two of you guys need to come in...

My Saturdays and Sundays used to be spent playing music. Writing Songs. Recording. Walking around the city. Visiting friends. Smoking pot. Reading the Globe. Having wild sex. Seeing movies. Drawing. Shopping. Listening to The Ramones on full blast.

Now I spend almost every single one monitoring the productivity of the Interviewers, slumped at my desk, surfing the internet or editing open ends. And at 6PM when the day is over, I climb out of hell and emerge into a downtown watering hole, where several Long Island Iced teas beckon me like sirens, and I am ship-wrecked.