I thought, maybe, just maybe, I'd be wrong about her. I even pretended for a bit that my boss was going to give me a Christmas bonus after Christmas, because she's the meddlesome sort and would probably assume I'd be broke after the holidays.

I was wrong. After nearly three years, she still surprises me. I have got to get over this fear of moving on and quitting this job and just do it. I'm all talk, though, so don't expect it any time soon.

I realize I may sound a bit selfish, expecting a Christmas bonus. Let me break it down to you, though:

The first year I worked for her, she gave me $50.

The second year, she gave me nothing, but we sold a website right before Christmas so I made and extra $200.

This year, her business has never been better. She hired one of her daughters to work for her a few months ago, and since then has been taking on clients left and right. I am mainly given the old and boring stuff. Those articles that no one really wants to write, but they need to be done. I don't mind it, despite the fact that I haven't gotten a raise since the first year I worked for her and I'm still only earning $9 per one when I know she charges them $30 to $40 per one. Still, I don't complain.

So when she told me how she was going with her family to a big expensive theme park for the weekend before Christmas and posted on Facebook how her daughter (the one working for her) bought her a coach purse for Christmas, I was expecting something. When it didn't come before Christmas, I figured she just wanted to wait and see what she had left after spending what she wanted to. But nope.

If I worked for a content mill I'd expect nothing. This was supposed to be different. She keeps trying to tell me how it's so different. It doesn't seem like it. I'm the replaceable, underappreciate employee, who will suffer through.

I will not allow myself to smile when she throws the words "business partner" my way anymore or when she includes me in these fantastical dreams she has for the company that she never goes through with. I don't want to imagine greatness anymore. The fall from up there is too much.