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| Photo courtesy Quartz |
Anyone who’s
ever watched the 1999 movie, Office Space, knows just how dreadful and soul
sucking a day job can be. Being ball-and-chained to a small cubicle for eight
and half hours per day is, to many people, a form of slavery. But hey, unless
you’re independently wealthy, everyone’s got to work. We have to eat, right? We
have bills to pay.
Too bad most
Americans are said to be only $400 away from being flat broke, meaning, they
not only live paycheck to paycheck, they can’t afford it when their car breaks
down or the refrigerator goes on the fritz. If that’s not depressing enough,
you’re still expected to show up for work on Monday morning.
A Case of the Mondays
In Office
Space, the main character Peter, played by actor Ron Livingston, is so
depressed after having arrived at his dull, soul sucking job on a Monday
morning, he decides to skip out for a coffee along with a couple coworkers.
They visit a nearby cheesy chain establishment, Chotchkies, which is sort of
like TGIF Fridays on steroids. Like Fridays, the staff is not only expected to
where an obnoxious uniform covered in “flair,” their attitude must be over-the-top
happy.
The server
Peter and his buddies get is just one such individual. As they sit down, the
server, Brian, played by actor, Todd Duffey, plants a broad, if not obnoxious
smile on his face. It’s a direct contrast to the gloomy, upside down faces
seated around the table.
“Looks like
somebody’s got a case of the Mondays,” Happy Server Brian says.
I’m not
going to give away too much of the movie’s plot, but suffice to say, from that
point on, Peter is determined to find a way not only to get rid of his job, which
is presided over by his evil boss, William Lumbergh (Gary Cole), he wants to
find a means of employment that will allow him to do nothing at all, every day,
all day.
Maybe Peter
didn’t realize at the time, but what he's talking about is passive income.
Writing as Passive Income
One of the
main reasons I got into freelance writing and fiction writing in the first
place was to avoid a day job. I was groomed to run an industrial and commercial
construction company. Immediately after college, I was given a week off and
told to report to the office. There was no backpacking in Europe with my
friends, no heading to New York City to land a job perhaps as a cub reporter,
no heading cross country to find my fortune on my own terms…no fun of any kind.
I was to
report to the office and begin my apprenticeship as a junior executive. Here’s
how the first year went: I hated every minute of it. Now this is not to come
down on what many people would consider the opportunity of a lifetime, and it
was. But the problem was, I knew in my bones the career wasn’t for me. I couldn’t
stand being cooped up in an office all day checking packing slips and asking
for quotes on windows and doors. It wasn’t my cup of tea.
Emotionally
speaking, here’s how a typical week would go. Monday morning is a horrible
experience exacerbated by lack of sleep, anxiety over what the day will bring,
and the empty feeling of utter hopelessness since at that moment in time, another
Friday seems like an impossible dream.
By Tuesday
you loosen up a little and resign yourself to the job. By Wednesday you see the
light at the end of the tunnel. Thursday you’re starting to feel like you’re gonna
make it after all. Friday you’re exuberant. Friday night you get drunk with the
friends, and you do so again on Saturday. By Sunday the hangover kicks in and
by Sunday night you’re miserable once again because guess what day dawns in the
morning?
Rediscovering Hemingway
In my spare
time, I read all the books I couldn’t read or didn’t have the time to read
during my undergraduate years. I was especially fond of the Hemingway novels
and short stories. I also got heavily into the Hemingway biographies,
especially the Carlos Baker biography which, at the time, was considered the
quintessential work on the adventurous author.
I loved it.
I
wasn’t halfway through with the big book when I realized, this is the life for
me. Hemingway didn’t just write, he lived the life he was writing about. He
lived in Paris, went to the bullfights in Spain, hunted lions in Africa, fished
on the Gulf Stream, married a very rich lady, built a house in Key West, and
what’s more, he never had a real job other than a few short years as a full-time
newspaperman.
The
Hemingway life was the life I wanted to experience. When the realization sank
in, it was like a big bright light had gone off inside my brain and my heart. I
felt lighter than air because I had found my true calling. It must have been
what a priest experiences when he finally discovers his sacred mission in life.
I didn’t
waste any time. That day I announced to all my friends that I was giving up the
construction business to be a writer.
They all
laughed at me.
Proving the Naysayers Wrong
Proving the
naysayers wrong would not only take determination, it would take guts and a
willingness to start at the bottom. After all, back then, I had more enthusiasm
than talent. I started writing on the side. Taking a cue from the great
Hemingway, I got a job at the local Times Union Newspaper writing sports
stories on the weekends. I also started freelancing for them. Stories ranging
from fly fishing for trout and bass, to travel pieces, to book reviews.
Again, like
Hemingway, I tried my hand at writing some short stories. Before long I found
myself getting published in journals like the Maryland Review, Fugue, Old
Hickory Review, Buffalo Spree, Orange County Magazine and many more. My
journalism was getting published in New York Newsday and Hudson Valley
Magazine, and I would be accepted into the prestigious Bread Loaf Writers
Conference in Vermont. I was working hard, but I was also making a little money
and, more importantly, making my way as a literary neophyte.
That’s when
I applied to Vermont College for my MFA in Writing. I was accepted. Suddenly,
my friends were no longer laughing at me.
Back to a Case of the Mondays
There was no
stopping me. I plowed through writing school like a man possessed and in the
process sold a novel that would fetch a very major deal. And while that deal
would have its issues, I would never again work a real job. That was over
twenty years ago. The writing life has had plenty of ups and downs since then, but
I can still wake up on Monday mornings, and if I so choose, roll over and go
back to sleep. What’s more, I can do this in Italy if I want, as easily as I
can do it here in New York. Books sales, for the most part, are a passive
income monster. You sell books while you’re sleeping or, like Peter from Office
Space aspires to, while you’re doing absolutely nothing at all.
Come to
think of it, I’ve worked really hard for the right to do nothing.
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