I voted yesterday, by absentee ballot, against the Davis recall in California. I don't particularly mind Schwarzenegger; in fact, if you're going to have to have a Republican in charge, you could do far worse than the Hitler-admiring groper from Austria. I've been remarkably restrained over the last few years in not expressing my political views on this page. It just seems that it's pretty much a waste of time; those that agree with you will lap it up, and those who don't will just hyperventilate. But just for the record, in case there was any doubt, I thoroughly despise the Bush Administration, with an animus I don't ever recall feeling against any previous administration; and my main reason for opposing the recall is that I fear the effects of having a Republican take charge in California in the run up to the Presidential elections.

Okay, in for a penny, in for a pound. I'm a Howard Dean man, myself, though I tend to agree with those that think he may not be electable. I've liked what I've seen of Wesley Clark so far; not that I think he's the best possible candidate. He's done some things in the past which make you question his common sense. But he's the only candidate who can compete with Bush on the patriotism thing. We just have to wait and see if he can really pull together a viable campaign this late in the day.

Although I'm something of a political junkie, I'm somewhat tone deaf when it comes to personal politics. And there's no doubt that I'd be much further ahead in my career if I'd ever had the interest or the aptitude to play the right game at work. This week was a pretty horrible one for me; one of the worst in my career, and I came to the end of the week feeling as if I'd spent a few days tossed around in a small boat in a tempestuous sea filled with big battle ships lobbing shells at each other.

It would have been a bad enough week even without the political aspect. Not only have I had to work very long hours, but I've also had to work all the way downtown on the edges of Tribeca in a vast cubicle farm, where I felt alone and anonymous. Such is the lot of consultants in general; but rarely the case with my company, where we usually make a practice of working in our home office. Although Tribeca is an intriguing neighborhood, the office I was working in was in kind of a nowhere place in the middle of big avenues; I've yet to find a Starbucks within a ten block radius.

A few weeks ago, I recounted how one of the tech-leads had been replaced. The new guy hasn't overly impressed me; he whirls around with activity, and direction, but seems happy with pushing the perception of being in charge rather than the reality. On the subway back uptown one night this week, he told me something that I instantly wished he hadn't shared; that the director of my company's business unit responsible for this project had been campaigning for weeks to boot me back to San Francisco. It really kicked the legs out from under me. I've done some great work on this project, under difficult conditions, and this is how it's appreciated. The grounds for removing me were the same that derailed my being chosen as the replacement tech-lead a few weeks back; a remark I'd made to one of the customers.

Now, until this revelation, I'd thought highly of the business director. He'd been friendly and personable to me. Which made it all the more strange that he'd been pushing to remove me, behind my back. As I continued uptown on the subway with the new tech-lead, he told me that the only reason I was still here was that all of the managers on the project had fought to keep me, and that I had one heck of a good reputation in the department. That made me feel a little better. But I was still upset that all of my hard work could so easily lead to nothing.

The next day, it happened that I had lunch with the business director, along with a couple of other guys on the project. As we walked through Tribeca/China Town to find a place to eat, the traffic patterns left me and the business director alone, while the others walked ahead. But I couldn't call him on what had been going on since I didn't officially know anything (the tech-lead had told me of it in confidence, and only, I think, in an effort to both win my confidence and prove himself one of the cognoscenti). The lunch left me feeling anxious and awkward with the guy; responding to his civilities, but wondering if such a seemingly nice guy could really be so two-faced. I went home each night feeling grey and flat.

Late Friday afternoon, I got a call from the project director, the guy who reports to the business director and who generally does his dirty work. As soon as I heard his voice, and his praise of my efforts on the project, I knew that something bad was coming. This was probably the impact of the boot. But I was wrong; it was bad news indeed, but only a request that I work the weekend. I asked him how much longer he expected to need me on the project, and he told me that it would be at least through the end of October. So it seems that the forces of good prevailed against the business director, and my execution is stayed. But this week has put to rest any illusions I've cherished that my company mostly has it's employee's best interests at heart.

Last night, I returned to Tribeca, this time to meet Chris for dinner. Before he arrived, I walked around the darkened streets, staring in at the expensive furniture stores and galleries, which are separated from the street by raised iron stoops, the architecturally distinguishing note of the neighborhood. We had dinner at an unpretentious place called Bubbys. Before Chris arrived, I sat at tbe bar, greedily downing a strong vodka greyhound - my recovery shot after the vicious work week. I sat next to a mysterious old English lady who wondered, in her fruity accent, if it would be at all possible to get such a thing as a glass of red wine.

Other nights this week, I was too tired to do anything except watch the new television season. It's turned remarkably cold here for this time of the year. Sitting in the cafe at Borders, right now, looking out on Park Avenue, it seems that we've exited Summer without any of the joys of Fall. Although it's only quarter to six, the thick grey day has darkened already, at least here in the caverns of Park Avenue. And we've gone straight from t-shirt weather to jacket weather, without the intermediate sweat-shirt-and-layers weeks of sunlight filtering through falling leaves. So it's not just tiredness that's keeping me in on the evenings; it's also the cold weather. I feel like I want to hybernate - a feeling that's just one of the familiar memories of living in Philadelphia that are coming back to me. I remember now why I moved to San Francisco, with it's kinder, gentler clime. Not to mention it's wildly liberal politics.