Well, I know have a real job in web design. I make shitty webpages professionally now. I work for a company. It's fun. I work on my own time, for money, and go to the office like once a week to check up on things and/or pick up my paycheck. It's a barrel of fun. I have concerns lately, however, that I might be turning into a corporate slave. I have decided to lay out the conditions of why I am and why I am not a corporate slave, and I'll let the world decide.

Reasons I could be considered a corporate slave:

• I work for a "company".
• I go to a place called "the office."
• I do projects that are for an entity called a "client."
• I receive email and answering machine messages every morning from my boss-type guy.
• I have to meet deadlines.
• I work with people who do "backend" work to "develop" websites.
• I participate in conference calls on a speaker phone.
• I drink everything out of a coffee cup while at "the office."
• I utilize a separate email address just for business-related email.
• I get paid for travel to and from "the office."

Reasons I could not be considered a corporate slave:

• I work for a "company," and not a "corporation."
• "The office" has Ghost in the Shell and Evangelion prints on the walls, and I only go in once a week, just to talk.
• I complete all my projects at home, in the comfort of my shitty chair.
• The email's subject is always "hello," and the messages are like "When you get in, give me a call..." He's a boss-type guy, not a boss. I really have no boss. We have a president, but that's about as close as it comes. My boss-type guy is more of a person that tells me about my assignments, like that person that tells James Bond his next assignment. I'm not like saying I'm James Bond or anything; don't get me wrong here.
• The deadlines are flexible. I won't get fired for missing one because the boss-type guy is cool and can bullshit his way out of anything.
• The people that I work with, backend, developers, whatever, are all under 30 and are fucking hilarious.
• Well, the conference calls often never happen. Today the client didn't call. I often get in mini-arguments about something with a client; it's quite funny. Me: "We don't need to put 'click here' on that banner ad. Users assume that banners are links after all these years now." Client: "Well, based on my one-person focus group, me, ha ha, I think that the outright description of the action will help the user to know what they should do to the banner..."
• I drink water, tea, and coffee out of the company coffee cups that are always sitting around the one little coffee maker in that one corner. Hell, today I had to spit really bad (it's sinus season again), and I ended up spitting in a coffee filter (I don't know if I should've shared that).
• It's the coolest damn email address I have. I really wish I could tell. It's a funny username @ a funny domain .com. My name when you receive email from me from that address is (substitute Sarcasmo for meat name) "Sarcasmo is not the droids you're looking for..." Excellent entertainment for the boss-type guy.