Today was a pretty sucky day for me, for no particular reason. But it has been made that much better by the fact that I had a chance to send a strong letter of rebuke to a certain major petroleum company (rhymes with HELL) about shadiness in their environmental practices.

I like writing strong letters of rebuke, for a number of reasons. First of all, delivering a verbal smackdown on a major company makes me feel important. Yes, I am shallow and egotistical. So what?

Also, I like to feel like I am doing a little bit to keep in check those companies that think that because they are big and multinational and generate lots of money they are above the law. Of course, any satisfaction derived from this is easily counteracted by the realization that they can go above my head and pull strings and be allowed to do whatever the hell they want anyway, but at least I did what I'm supposed to be doing.

Finally, strong letters of rebuke give me a wonderful outlet for suppressed bitchiness. I especially like it when I can slip in some subtle snarkiness and sarcasm under the guise of exercising my professional duty. The letter I sent today wasn't very snarky in its original draft, but in the second edit I was able to insert one or two little digs that I am particularly pleased with.

So yeah, that made my day a bit better than it was before. It's the little things that do it, you know what I mean?