Novel Progression - A Meditation on Corporate America

It has been almost two weeks since I made the possibly harebrained decision to write a novel instead of going back to work and the results so far are...mixed. Though I've taken a few writing workshops in the pursuit of sharpening up my dusty skills, it's apparent to me that I might be a bit in over my head. The process for publishing a novel is unsurprisingly not as simple as write a book, pitch a book, sell a book and then bang, boom money. Man, I wish it worked that way. 

Initially, I gave myself a deadline of finishing up a rough draft by January and as I'm working on this novel, hammering out the rough outline of a story that I think others would want to read, I'm realizing that both my deadline and general plan are starting to look a bit unrealistic. When this idea first came to me, it seemed an obvious path forward: document my journey getting healthy, write the story, find an agent, sell my book. Now, I've taken a handful of writing workshops, penned the first portion of my story, and researched the process of publishing a novel from querying literary agents, hiring an editor for my manuscript, to actually getting hired by a publishing house, and it occurs to me that this process will take a lot more time than I thought it would. For one, how could I possibly write the bulk of my novel about getting healthy if I haven't even started working out yet? 

Honestly, this entire process is hinged on whether or not my unemployment is approved because I don't have the financial means to continue forward without an income. I also know myself well enough to know that I lack the discipline to work out at home, a starting point that is more or less required to write this story. How can I write a novel about getting healthy if I don't even work out and my day-to-day diet largely consists of whatever foods I can shove in my fat gob?

It'll be eight weeks tomorrow since I filed for unemployment and as far as I can tell, they are no closer to a final decision despite my numerous calls to check in on its status. Quite frankly, if for some unknown reason my benefits are denied, I won't have a choice but to take the first job that'll hire me. My savings are almost completely depleted and by the end of the month, I could be absolutely destitute. That's the reality of living in an economy that doesn't pay its workers a livable wage. Despite all the progress I've made in the last few years to improve my finances, stick to a budget, and manage my debt, it took all of two months to drain my savings and destroy all of my hard-laid plans of paying my bills on time every month. And they say that poverty doesn't cost anything. Bah!

So, where do I go from here? I suppose the obvious answer is to keep writing. To keep trying. To keep fighting the urge to give up completely and resign myself to a life of mediocrity working in another office job where I'm expected to withstand the verbal abuse so prevalent in literally every industry. How did we get to the point as a culture where we reward the bad behavior of entitled people? Yesterday, I had to swing by my old job to pick up an air pump that I'd left behind and I happened upon a resident in that community who was always, to put it politely, a huge pain in my ass. He would often come into the office literally, not figuratively, screaming about whatever minor inconvenience was our problem to solve, and 10/10 times, instead of putting him in his place and communicating that his behavior was unacceptable, the sweet little property manager, who at one point I falsely considered to be a good friend, would cater to his demands and piss-poor attitude all in the name of "great customer service". You know, other countries don't seem to have this problem. It's strictly an American thing. 

Weirdly enough, this person waved to me and smiled, as though he didn't realize that I hadn't been around for the last two months. Every bone in my body really wanted to just lay into him, tell him what an entitled piece of shit he was, tell him in no uncertain terms what I really thought of him as a person. But I didn't. Some part of my brain, long conditioned after a decade-plus working in the service industry, held my tongue because it was the right thing to do: no matter to what extent I reprimanded this gentleman, he was old as balls and a chastising from someone he considered to be beneath him wouldn't change his behaviors. It's generally true that most people don't change their behaviors because of someone else anyway. So, instead of doing what I wanted to, I smiled and waved back and left the parking lot, hopefully for the last time. God forbid I ever have to go back there. 

It is perhaps fairly obvious that in the process of writing a non-fiction memoir, I've spent a lot of time recently meditating on the 'why' of my circumstances: why did I get fired, why do I always seem to struggle to find the right job, why is it difficult to be successful. And I wish I had answers. Maybe I'm broken. Maybe I just haven't found the right industry. Maybe I'm just not a very nice person. Who the hell knows? What I do know is that I owe it to myself to try something new because it's apparent that what I have been doing isn't really working. Though I do genuinely enjoy parts of the property management industry, I've been in it for five years and have made exactly no progress. I never finished my courses to obtain my associate broker license, a feat which I felt would guarantee I'd eventually earn a liveable income down the line, and despite the number of companies I've worked for, I have yet to experience the growth that I so badly wanted. I've jumped from job to job to job trying to find fulfillment in an industry that doesn't cater to people like me - people who are quick to call out bullshit behavior or disrespectful attitudes. Why should I have to kiss the ass of someone who is being a jerk to me? 

For the longest time, I envisioned a future for myself as a successful property manager earning a comfortable income that afforded me the financial opportunities that had always been out of my reach - buying a house, taking vacations, not living paycheck-to-paycheck - all while maintaining my steadfast belief in treating people with honest respect. I am not a disrespectful person. I am, however, a straightforward person which in this culture often equates to "being rude", feedback which has been given to me numerous times. In all the introspection I've done recently, one pattern has been abundantly clear: all of the times where I got "in trouble" at work were a direct result of an interaction with someone who was being unjustly disrespectful to me; whether that was coming into the office screaming, making demands that weren't theirs to make, or arguing about being charged late fees despite rent being due several days prior. The list goes on and on. And though I always handled those interactions professionally, my propensity for "telling it straight" seemed to be my downfall. I am not the kind of person who uses soft language just for the sake of protecting someone's ego nor should I have to be. 

The reality is that I am no more qualified to change an entire social structure than any other person. I can't change how people choose to treat others but I can choose to treat workers with respect, a grace for which a lot of my career has not been given to me. 

As I mentioned before, I am skeptical that this "anti-work" movement will gain any traction. Though it is obvious cultural attitudes are shifting away from the "customer is always right" mentality, I have little faith in the system that has conditioned people to believe that their value in this life is the work that they can put in for others; that their value lies in loyalty to a company that maintains no loyalty to them. We're so overworked that we pay additional money for convenience, too little time in our day to work on the things that make us happy, the handful of hours leftover at the end of the day reserved for downtime, a precious resource that the rich have plenty of and the poor have too little. We're stuck in a system that keeps impoverished people impoverished and rich people rich with no realistic means of escaping the financial bracket they were born into. I mean for Christ's sake, I think I paid more taxes this year than fucking Amazon did! And that guy is the richest in the world, aside from Vladimir Putin. Probably. We have no real understanding of how rich that guy actually is, all his business dealings shrouded in mystery and murder. It's kind of amazing he's still the leader of Russia and hasn't been assassinated yet. 

So, today, despite the mountain of obstacles in front of me - possible financial ruin, a perhaps slim chance at being a published writer, and the ever-looming threat of having to jump back in the corporate world - I'll choose to write. Failure is always an option, a possibility even, but at least I will have tried something new, something that could lead to me finding my own happiness. Maybe this will open the doors for me to make a living as a freelance writer or editor someday. Perhaps I'll get to meet new people, hone my craft, and work for my own schedule instead of the draining schedule of a 9-5. It's also true that I could completely fail and find myself back in the grips of a traditional job, the desire to not starve a strong motivator. Who knows? 

Until I have a guaranteed income with unemployment benefits, the only thing I know for sure is that I have to keep trying to make something work. There's nothing else I can do. 

Till next time.