Change - I prefer the kind that folds.

It's been a while, and I'm sorry, but I probably have an audience of one (ME), so does it really matter?

There's been a lot of upheaval at the jobsite.  There's a LOT of emphasis on being positive and upbeat.  Although I see the logic in it, I can't HELP but think the following thoughts:

Mind stapling.  I LOVE MY WORK.
I bet ol Massa would prefer a batch of smiling slaves, too.  (Strike that, that's just wrong, wrong, wrong.)
Although I LOATHE Julia Roberts, I think of her talking about eating shit politely with a knife and fork in Something to Talk About.

When the management is heaping loads of crap on you, of COURSE they want you to smile and suck it up.  They want you to trust them, and believe that everything will trickle down. 

This week I have spent INFURIATED because I came up with a great idea.  That's not news.  I come up with a great idea every other day and twice on Sundays.  That's what I DO.  I'm forward thinking and proactive.  This is because I am saddled with a lazy boss, and thinking ahead is a survival instinct.  If I don't, guess who gets all the work?  Yeah, I'm thinking all the time about preventing future mishaps and shit like that.

Well, I have an IDEA.  My boss says that he will tell Little Big Boss that it's mine.  I was shocked.  (I'm also gullible.)  I first modestly say that it's not necessary, and he assures me that of COURSE it is.  When he comes back from that meeting he is all aglow from the praise he has received for his "forward thinking" and "proactiveness."  Yep, I figured out that all these years he's been passing off MY ideas as his own.  I haven't spoken to him since.  I honestly don't know what to do, and people outside the legal world don't understand the political machine that is this job.

1) Who would I complain to?  Who would believe me?  Where would it get me?
2) Finding another job?  I've thought about it, and I don't really fancy starting over with 10 years in, and then I kid myself that 10 years in means a damn thing.  (IT DOESN'T!  Unless you're an attorney.)  The other thing is that they KNOW each other.  That means that they won't hire me unless he says okay.  Unless I want to change careers altogether, there's nowhere for me to go because I've been his right hand for far too long.
3) It would be more of the same shit if I did leave anyway.

What my instructors told me was that this is a thankless job (understatement of the decade), but she didn't say that you'd be the anonymous genius of the firm.  I wasn't ready for that.  I look through our company manual and see policy that I've written, and I know that no one will ever know that I did it.

That really matters because it makes a difference in salary, potentially.  I'm really done with the need for praise because you can get buckets of that, but it ain't very spendy.  If they want to praise me, they do it with cash.