You remember that photo, right? The one of the actor Geoffrey Owens, most famous for his role on The Cosby Show, working the register at Trader Joe’s? The photo taken by someone whose very intent was to shame a working actor for having what she perceived as a low-life job?
This angered me so much, but Owens graciously took the high road. He parlayed this job shaming into many appearances on morning talk shows. He lauded his employer for taking him in, for giving him a steady paycheck while he sought work as an actor. As a result, he ended up getting more acting work. He’s always been a working actor, and sometimes a working actor has to work at a job flexible enough to accommodate his craft. It’s not prestigious, but you wanna know what else isn’t prestigious: missing the rent.
If we’re not getting job shamed by our family or by someone at a party, then we almost certainly do it to ourselves. You think I spent all this money on education and it’s led me to working a crummy retail job because I can’t get enough writing gigs. You think Well, if I was any good at this craft, would I even need a day job? Or you start playing the Competition Olympics and think Well, my heroes, those artists I so deeply admire, they don’t have to stack produce at the supermarket while I fill-in-the-blank.
The fact is, in this day of social media highlights, YOU DON’T KNOW IF THEY’RE STACKING PRODUCE OR NOT. THEY MIGHT BE, BUT THEY’RE NOT BROADCASTING IT.
There are myriad things worth unpacking here and maybe this will be the first of several micropods about Day Jobs and Job Shaming.
I can speak to this because it’s something I have felt so deeply for many, many years.
I’ll leave you with this: Day Jobs are nothing to be ashamed of. Think of it as a way that subsidizes your art. Make what you can in the time you have and stop hating yourself for it.
