However, that has to be tempered with the fact that I’m denied my due by someone I know, someone I PISS with in the men’s room. The first time that happened, I said, “Great bladders think alike.” He thought that was pretty funny. Now he thinks he said it first.

If you work for a public company, you at least have the option of driving down the stock price by spreading factual information about the inside operations of the company. Better yet, you can drive down the stock price by spreading lies.

If I were to calculate my salary based on the hours of actual work, I’d have a decent hourly rate. Even so, I’d rather show you my penis — in its most shriveled, George Costanza state — than show you my paycheck.

For example: A couple of years ago, the founding boss died at the age of 71. I knew he was a Catholic, and he knew I wasn’t, but I never thought anything about that until the funeral.

At the funeral, nearly all my coworkers were doing all the kneeling things and the Hail Marys and whatever else goes with the ceremony. It was pretty surprising.

Then I thought about how nearly all of them were women with children (I am not a woman and I don’t have children). Then I thought about the times I noticed them being in the boss’s office (door open, though), chatting about small stuff, like kids and weekend outings.

I had never had any exchange like this with the boss in the eight years I knew him. I did, though, talk about the business, and I had suggestions about improving efficiency. Respectful, smart suggestions that were and are the right things to do.

Evidently the boss didn’t care about his own business. He was pulling down $400,000 a year, and he knew his family was set, on account of his estate, his $2 million house, and his daughters marrying well. He was tired of the industry, and he didn’t want to be bothered. He knew I was doing good work, but he didn’t care that it would take two people to replace me. He just wanted to relax and talk to Catholic “girls.”

Shortly before he died, he hired a new boss-type, who is very much like him. This guy needs piles of money he doesn’t have, but his main interest in me is to talk about our college alma mater and how great the basketball team was in the years I attended.

I think this is one peril of working for a small company. The leader has to care. But if his stomach is full now or sure to be soon, he doesn’t want to see hungry people.

I say this because I have seen his story play out, in rough fashion, where I work. It’s a company that produces something relatively easy: monthly magazines. That takes about 6 people to do the work and 15 people to sit around. I lie awake at night for many hours pondering the physics or the biologies that determine why the competent people are treated badly, while the lazy prevail and are vastly overpaid.

(Hint for employees of small, single-site companies: Ask for the “full report” on the 401(k) plan. It’s possible you will accidentally receive, as I did, the “full evaluation” instead, and therein you will find the salaries, birthdates and home addresses of all your coworkers. DON’T DO THIS IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH.)

I bet Larry has ideas about these physics. Something along the lines of people being like dogs. That is, dogs are said to smell fear in some people, and so they growl and try to bite those people, just because they can get away with it.

In similar fashion, bosses smell superior intellect, no matter how hard you try to conceal it, no matter how much you try to remove the tell-tale glistening spark from your eyes, no matter how you mispronounce words. And bosses, like dogs, bite back in the ways they can, and they lick the butts of the lowly curs who are like them.

Many readers will say that I’m to blame, or Larry is to blame, for the lack of better success and promotion. Well, that’s pretty cute and facile.

I hate to insult the people who suffered during legal segregation, but was it ALWAYS fair to blame the situations of blacks in 1954 Alabama on their “attitude”? Of course not.

Yes, I think there’s a similar insidious, animalistic resentment in most people over the aroma of intelligence they get from others. The aroma cannot be stopped, in the way skin color can’t be stopped. One has the lean and hungry look, period. One is dangerous, but he is tolerated because of his performance and his reasonable salary.

It seems to me that discrimination over skin color is relatively easy to purge from a society, if 200 years from slavery to Oprah can be cited as an example of progress. But discrimination over intelligence is only getting worse. I mean, like, shit man, look at what’s going on with the high-school exit exams in California. We don’t even have the guts to require high school graduates to do 8th-grade arithmetic.

Why isn’t this fixed yet?? We’re Huge Corp…

Huge Corp wants you to know that there will be consequences…

HUGE CORP!…