What Color Is Your Masochism? Part 3 - model of success

I was browsing around monster.com today, and noticed a feature called "Success Stories: I Found My Job" meant to help guide the confused job seeking masses who forage through the site wondering what exactly it takes to find a dream job. Monster's "Success Stories" series profiles successful professionals who have found their dream jobs, and outlines their trajectory to professional fulfillment.

You can read these stories and model your job search after ordinary, everyday winners, like Alexis, who landed a job as the head blogger at Alicia Keys's new website. And boy does she make it look easy! All Alexis had to do was work super hard in high school to get full scholarships to college, presumably freeing her up to explore foundational occupations like internships in her field, rather than settling for the menial service industry jobs many college students fall into. She got her first big break right out of college, writing at the Village Voice. As a follow up, she spent the next couple of years as an editor for Martha Stewart, and then headed finally to Monster.com to collect her Dream Job. In other words, she did a bunch of shit "you, the reader/job seeker" should've done years ago but didn't, but hey, it's not too late for you to enroll in one of Monster's many for-profit higher ed sponsors. What'll it be, hmmm?

I'm not actually knocking Alexis (or Monster). In fact I think she should be commended for achieving so much, and for being willing to share her story in the hope of inspiring others.The problem is that Alexis's story, like so many other success stories, promotes an uncommonly straight, narrow path and doesn't offer much guidance or inspiration for the countless job seekers whose personal histories are complicated by familial, financial or other obligations. We've all heard over and over that the road to success begins with a single SAT score, that the way to make yourself stand out is to go beyond the basics and add volunteer work, internships, and apprenticeships to your portfolio. But what advice do we have for people whose dance cards are full? People with children and debt and sick parents and dead parents and minefields of social discouragement to navigate?

I think it's fantastic that Alexis was able to make all the right moves, at the right times, and that things worked out for her as a result. But what about the kids and grown ups who have to do it differently, whose roads are more a murky irridescent collage of spirals and zigzags than a clean sturdy highway of yellow bricks? Alexis's story is pretty cool, but it's also predictable, conventional and very, very boring. What I'd really like to read would be a series called "Success Stories: I Found My Unique, Bizzare, and Improbably Perfect Job"

What Color Is Your Masochism? Part 2b - Rockstar Resume

Please accept my attached resume in response to your ad for an experienced Rockstar Receptionist

You can count on me to:
· Show up late (even later than you’re imagining right now)
· Leave early (unless I pass out at my desk, in which case, I’ll leave when my hangover wears off or when you hand me another drink, whichever comes first)
· Smell like booze and groupies
· Break stuff for no apparent reason
· Bone you and/or your significant other
· Have a perpetually runny nose
· Motivate someone else to do the dirty work for me, i.e. filing, faxing, answering phones

I have a proven track record of “Rockstar” behavior and am excited to offer my talents to your team. I’ve developed my skills in multiple roles as an office manager, receptionist, intern, and bookkeeper, and have taken every opportunity to hone my tendencies toward overall rockstar performance. I’m not much of a team player, but I make a great frontman, and routinely bring the house down with unparalleled pelvic thrusts, head bangs, and shredding vocals.

If you’re looking for the perfect candidate for the job you’ve described, look no further!

Salary Requirements:
$6,000 per appearance, plus hospitality rider to include 1 deli tray, chips & salsa, case of Coors Light or comparable American light beer, one fifth of Maker’s Mark, and 6 packets of Throat Coat tea.

What Color is Your Masochism? Part 2 – Rockstar Receptionist

Ever find yourself looking for another reason to feel disgusted with humanity? Go to Craigslist and search the word “rockstar” in “Jobs.” Seriously, you can do this in any town in the U.S. What you’ll find are a bunch of employers hoping to get a lot of something for next to nothing. In the vocabulary of want ads, the word “rockstar” indicates someone with exceptional skills and ambition who will work for a wage below market standard, and below what a person can reasonably live on.

These ads drive me batty. Not only because they’re unreasonable and insulting to jobseekers, but because the authors of these ads clearly don’t understand what a “rockstar” is.

Rule #1 in this OPP establishment: Rockstars do not work for minimum wage.

In the common mythology, rockstars are not typically symbols of administrative virtue. An abundance of noteworthy, talented musicians have contributed to the image of the rockstar as oversexed, drug addicted, and wildly narcissistic and impulse-driven. Does that sound like an ideal secretary to you? Administrative professionals are traditionally credited for their organization, punctuality, demure sense of duty and obedience; traits not typically ascribed to rockstars.

Out of wicked curiosity and a compelling desire to vindicate the abused job-seeking masses, I started wondering how these employers would react if they got a a curriculum vitae closer to what you’d expect from an actual rockstar. As a little experiment, I'm sending out a "Rockstar" cover letter and resume to job listings that ask for it. (See part 2b for the actual CV)

Say What? #3 - let's see if I can keep this up

One of the main reasons that I hesitate to write stories is that when I go back and read them, I find something awkward, embarrassing, or unnaturally exposed in my presentation of the story. I’ve tried to get around this by ignoring it, avoiding writing altogether, or sticking to subjects that seem immune to this type of discomfort. Recently, in a fit of blind self-confidence, I thought it would be worthwhile to look at one of these mortifying examples of flailing effort to see what exactly is causing this sense of humiliation.

What I found in the story in question was that I don’t have a graceful way of handling characters’ inner lives: their motivations, emotions, and impressions. In this area more than any other, I feel like I reveal my own prejudices, conceits, and ignorance… all the things I’d like to pretend don’t exist. It’s in these passages that I think I tell the reader more about myself than about my characters, and that, frankly undermines my whole purpose in writing fiction. So it seems necessary to find a new way of working with this type of material. If you leave it out, you run the risk of flattening your stories into skeletal plot outlines. If you overdo it, or do it clumsily, you wind up with an overwrought character portrait(of the artist).

And this brings me to my question of the day: does this happen to you? And how do you work it out? I think that everyone runs into some point of vulnerability (often many, many points of vulnerability) in their efforts to create. How do you address them in general, and how do you work out specific sticky points? Talk to Meg, or Carly, or Illy!

x-ing and o-ing ~i

Say What? #2 - a manifesto

People who know me (or have spent any time in my vicinity) likely know that I hate, and vehemently renounce critique workshops. I think they hinder creativity and encourage people to be mean and bland and the same. Of course I’m generalizing, and there are exceptions, like the San Mateo writing class I’ve been involved with for the last few years, a group of writers who genuinely celebrate and revel in the work they share with each other. But groups like this are rare, and most writers suffer at some point the shaming and destructive advice of a bitter writing community. Whatever. We don’t have to play with those kids, or even spend time with them, but it is hard to find a kind, encouraging community of writers to work with (without having to pay lots of $).


As writers, we benefit immensely from sharing ideas and the anatomy of our solutions to common and unique problems. In its best forms, the practice of exchanging tools helps us generate new ideas and bring slumbering projects to fruition. Since I’ve found so few examples of this type of community, I’m devoting a section of this blog to contribute some more space where my writer friends (and I) can find fellowship (and help) when needed.


Please, please participate as often and as much as you like.

Say What? #1 - a series of questions on writing

Back in college, I mastered the art of writing a 15 page paper in a matter of hours. For the duration of my undergrad education, I did what most kids do and waited until the absolute last possible minute to sit down and bang out every essay, no matter how complicated the topic or how much research it required. While this approach has its obvious drawbacks, it did make it easy to maintain a consistent voice throughout each project.

Now the game is different. Without answering to deadlines or teachers or formal writing groups, I can labor over a project for months at a time, and by the end (or halfway through) I notice that the voice is completely different from what I started with.

Yesterday, I opened up a story that’s been sitting on the shelf since last summer because I didn’t know how to end it. I finally had an idea of how to wrap things up, and when I tried to tack the ending on, I realized that it, and the bulk of the story didn’t fit with the opening paragraph at all. The easy solution seems to be scrapping the first paragraph and replacing it with something that fits better. But there’s a certain sorrow in letting something like that go. I remember vividly a time when that paragraph was all I had, and I was proud of the phrasing, the imagery, the life it was setting up for the reader. Now it feels strange to hack it off like a gangrenous toe.

I wonder how other writers work this out. Do they bite down on a leather strap between their teeth and hack, hack, hack? Or do they find more graceful ways of blending the diseased limb into the fabric of the story? I’d like to hear what works for others. If you have ideas or suggestions, or if you want to open a discussion of your own writing challenges (or victories!), post a comment here, or drop me a line. I’d love to hear from you!
x to the o to the i

Hey There, Where Ya Goin'... Not Exactly Knowin'?

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a truck driver. No shit. I thought there could be nothing more bitchin' than traveling around the country in a big-ass big rig with a chimpanzee at my side. We’d hit the open road and roll/bounce from town to town, getting into whatever misadventures we found, including brief encounters with sexy bearded men in plaid flannel and faded denim. Unfortunately, I’m a terrible driver, and monkeys make bad travel companions, and at the end of the day, I was just watching far too much BJ and the Bear. So I traded that dream in and became a traveling salesman, hitting the open road (one open road) in a big-ass Ford Taurus that seats about 20. I haul books along one stretch of highway, from town to town, college to college, trying to sell textbooks to professors who don’t want them. Is it the worst job in the world? No way, but 4 wheels is a lot less than 18, and a laptop in the passenger seat is a lot less furry than a chimp.

I imagine that if I’d wanted to be a rock star, I’d be playing a rendition of Marky Mark's Good Vibrations on a piano in the mall by now. If I’d dreamed of painting The Next American Masterpiece or Antimasterpiece, I’d have found steady work scribing weekly specials on a chalkboard at my local Trader Joe’s. But I wanted to be a truck driver, and I suppose this job is my equivalent consolation prize for such lofty aspirations. It makes me wonder if there’s room in the world for all our dreams, and also whether “what do you want to be when you grow up?” is a fair question. Should kids be relied upon to make such crucial decisions given the information available to them. I mean, what does a four year old know about how hard it is to stay on the right side of a double yellow line?

Are there even enough spaces in the world of dreams realized to accommodate all the little critters vying for them? And what should you do if you find yourself in one of the soul-numbing consolation slots? Is it better to keep striving like Sisyphus or convince yourself to acquiesce into your given groove? Should you concede defeat in your chosen arena and seek refuge in greener pastures, like the TSA job board? Of course there are other alternatives. There will always be ads on Craigslist seeking “[failed] Rockstar to manage our fast-paced office, must be AMMMMMMAAAAZING and willing to work for minimum wage,” but where’s the middle ground? There has to be some way to make a living wage, and something to sit behind during all those hours of your life that should’ve been spent behind an oversized steering wheel. There...has to, right?