I emailed my big boss after two years in the job and said that I wanted to renegotiate my contract and either wanted a payrise or a day off a week for less money. He wrote me back immediately and said that he will get back to me asap about it.

The next day he said that he was going to handball it to one of my junior bosses pending the outcome of the 360 reviews that they were about to conduct.

To cut a long story shorter, a month ago, I did the 360 review where 6 people I work with are asked a series of questions of what they think of my performance. Weeks later - when I asked about what the hell was going on with my initial request, I was asked to fill out another form that detailed what I thought of my performance.

Finally today I sat down with my junior boss - over a month later - to discuss my 360 review, I received a ton of paperwork and skimmed over it - what I read was surprisingly positive. My boss bought me a tuna salad for lunch and we discussed my 360 review. After about an hour he got a call and said he had to go. I butted in and asked him what about my request and he said that he wasn't in a position to give me either a payrise or a day off a week. He said I had to do a some other thing - can't remember the initials for it - before my request would be considered.

It's not the payrise or even the day off a week I was after. It was really just to gain some insight into what makes our company tick, and what the hell we are doing with our lives trying to keep this corporate beast alive.

I see my workplace like that MS game mechwarrior where all the staff are peddling away like mad powering the robot while my bosses are in the head having a great deal of trouble keeping the retarded beast steady.

There is so much wastage in corporate Australia, I don't think it can ever be fixed.