Browsing by here because you're having a rough day at work?

Here's your literary quote of the day from my morning's reading on the train.

". . . In the early '60's a Yoyodyne executive living near L.A. and located someplace in the corporate root-system above supervisor but below vice-president, found himself, at age 39, automated out of a job. Having been since age 7 rigidly instructed in an eschatology* that pointed nowhere but to a presidency and death, trained to do absolutely nothing but sign his name to specialized memoranda he could not begin to understand and to take blame for the running-amok of specialized programs that failed for specialized reasons he had to have explained to him, the executive's first thoughts were naturally of suicide.  But previous training got the better of him: he could not make the decision without first hearing the ideas of a committee. ..."

-Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
(p.83 of the Bantam mass market paperback) 

Having a better day at work now?

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*Despite the look of the word, eschatology has absolutely no relation to the verb romney or the noun santorum.  It is, however, true that Yoyodyne was one of the companies that was eventually bought and destroyed by Bain Capital under Mitt Romney's watch.