90% owned.

My account guy stopped by my table last night. (I call them tables, because frankly, they're too cheap to be considered desks. There's not a single drawer for your valuables, nothing but a $29 file cabinet underneath so you have something to bang your knee on.)

Anyway, I digress.

My account guy stopped by last night, glowing. He had bull-dogged his way through our client and gotten our 2014 scope of work signed. This is a bigger accomplishment than producing a spot and winning a gold pencil for it. It's more important, too. Because it means we will be paid.

Speaking of paid, he told me, and I quote "I'm 90% owned by the client."

To which I declared, "I thought slavery was abolished in 1863 by the Emancipation Proclamation." But apparently it wasn't. Because I am 90% owned.

I understand the employment security that comes from being 90% owned. I am not vulnerable to the caprices and the aggressive ageism of my agency. To them I might be one of the last old guys standing, but my salary and mark up are paid for, so, chances are, they'll leave me be until I'm not 90% owned.

Still, I don't like the concept of being owned.

The slavery-esq nomenclature.

I don't like being bought.

At the very least, tell me they bought not me, but my work time.

That takes the sting off it a bit.