By Brendan O’Meara
Okay, so this’ll be my last (I think) post for a while on Job Shaming. [Parts I and II]
You know what Day Jobs also do? They put you out into the world and in contact with people, and if you’re a writer: people are where the stories are.
Gay Talese, say what you will about him in recent years, but his advice to young writers coming out of school is to get a job driving a cab. What better way to intersect with people, real people.
I owe my first book to a retail job. There I was a double major, an MFA holder, working at a shoe store.
I was fitting a woman for a pair of running shoes. She asked me what I did besides the retail gig. I told her I was a writer and I had this book, Six Weeks in Saratoga, that I had finished and was shopping around.
She said, “I know an editor at SUNY Press and I know they’re looking for a Saratoga book.”
She gave me the woman’s email. I sent her the manuscript and…fast forward a few months…they accepted and would later publish the book.
This was lucky, but I also had done the work and was in the position to capitalize.
And it was the menial Day Job, one that I felt tons of shame over, that ultimately led to my first book. And it’s a good, little book for a 29-year-old. I’m not gonna denigrate it.
Point is, every time you punch the clock at work, you might have the opportunity of running into someone and that is likely someone you would’ve never met had you not had your Day Job out in the world.
No shame in that.