free beverages.

"How's your new job?"

"Do you like your new job?"

"How's the new job going?"

"Are you going to eat that?"

All of these questions have been asked of me this week, and it doesn't take an experienced player of "One of These Things is Not Like the Other" to figure out the topic of today's entry. Because while the first three questions require a long, drawn-out and self-indulgent answer perfectly suited to the blog environment, the answer to the last question is simply, "Yes" or at its most verbose, "Yes. Now buzz off."

So, the new job. There are a lot of ways I could go with this. I could talk about how I get to work on software that I would actually use (as opposed to truck mechanic software) and how much that helps my interest in my job. I could talk about how I've been downgraded from a window office to a cube and how that hasn't really bothered me very much. I could talk about how I always have enough work to do and the best part is that the work is mostly all writing actual code. I could talk about how really and truly dorky my coworkers are and how that makes me feel like I instantly belong. I could even do a whole entry where I write nothing but "I can wear jeans and sandals and t-shirts to work every single day!" over and over like a disciplinary assignment for Bart Simpson.

But no. I'm going to talk about the free beverages.

So here it is: We get free beverages.

Oh man, oh man, do I love this simple little perk. There is a big refrigerator entirely devoted to free soda (about ten varieties, including diet and caffeine-free options) and free juice (apple, orange, and grapefruit). There is a coffee vending machine, where you can get coffee, espresso, and hot chocolate, but you don't have to put any money in it. And while my old job had free, uh, water, the new place has two kinds of free water: filtered or bottled. Both are available throat-warming hot or refreshing cold, so I guess that means I really get four kinds of free water. And it's all free. I can go in the break room whenever I want, as often as I want, and just help myself to any of it. And because I am one of those people who tries all the samples at Sam's Club, I take advantage of my free beverage rights, by gum. It is the Best Thing Ever.

I feel that I'm going to be fielding the new job questions for a while. Sometimes I will be talking to someone who either understands me or the programming industry, and I will be able to tell them how awesome it is to be challenged mentally at work and how fortunate I feel to be working on software that I care about. But most times, it will just be small talk, and that asking person will either not understand what I mean or won't really be looking for anything in-depth. For them, I know my answer.

"Did you know that I get free beverages?"