Why The Universe Won’t Allow Me To Work For Someone Else. (I’ve Tried Many Times.)

Early Signs

I’m going to start by rewinding all the way back to the age of eleven. Eleven is significant because, up until then, I didn’t notice anything wrong. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I thought I was an exceptional student.

This inflated view of myself didn’t happen in a vacuum. In kindergarten I was pulled out of class for my writing, given cognitive tests, and informed that I needed more challenging material than what was typical for public school. It was nice to brag about it to my “normal” classmates, much as it’s still fun to bring up now.

What did it amount to? Well… let’s proceed.

The Turning Point

In sixth grade, age eleven, I recall the distinct moment our teacher informed us that she would no longer be accepting late assignments. This, she explained, was in an effort to prepare us for middle school, which was going to be much less forgiving.

It was at this moment it occurred to me that I had always relied upon the few days prior to the end of the quarter to half-heartedly complete required assignments. Or, to decide which assignments were critical, and which could be replaced with extra-credit.

I was a whore for extra-credit.

I think my combination of innocence, humor and precociousness aided me in the acquisition of extra-credit. My teachers knew I wasn’t a total slacker — I wrote short stories and drew like a madman. I just didn’t care for… structure.

Could you blame me? In kindergarten, I will remind you, I had been reliably informed that structured coursework was for the plebes, but I had been given the gift of a superior intellect. I was an awesome wizard, so far as I was concerned, and the work at my feet was a test — and the test was a question, and that question was: are you competent?

And yes, I was. And fuck you for asking. And if I needed to demonstrate it, I could do that from a resting position.

I could wow, amuse, and silence teachers and up until this critical turning point my teachers relented, showed me grace, and let me coast by. I called my soft-hearted teacher’s bluff and graduated from sixth grade by continuing to turn in late assignments.

The Fall

The following year, true to my teacher’s warnings, my grades plummeted. I could blame my home life that was simultaneously in turmoil, and a certain amount of that would be true, but in retrospect that seems wrong.

The truth was, I had coasted. The truth was, to a degree, the plebes had been busy working while I was off in la-la land, and the gap was closed.

Over the following years and into high school it got no better. While I succeeded in strange successes like becoming class president using crass charm and debate skills, I managed D’s and C’s. Again, leniency kept me from abject failure and repeated grades.

Subjects I had excelled at earlier had course-loads that made them unappealing. What did I do while I was there? I wrote, I drew along the margins of the page, and I entertained my friends.

I had about the biggest friend circle you could imagine. This was my crowning achievement in both high school and the college that followed (college I paid for, because I sure as hell didn’t receive scholarship).

The Outsider

I’ve had a lot of time to process this. I think it was clear to everyone who watched me flagrantly ignore the rules that I wasn’t without redeeming qualities.

As crazy as it is to admit, I still knew I was smarter than most of the kids with high grades. Arrogant? Maybe. I’ll admit my shortcomings in reflection. Intelligence isn’t one of them, sorry to say.

Was it a lack of maturity, perhaps? Yes, I think so.

A mature person wouldn’t justify their own failure by chastising people who were actually succeeding — calling them boring nerds without life or interest. I did this.

It was during this high-school period where I became critical of others, and sought to define what was important to me as an individual.

This process of defining wouldn’t be influenced by any system, as I’d already proudly committed myself to being an outsider.

It was a brave endeavor, now that I think about it — I had no religion, no school sports, no academic interest, no groups besides the friends I’d cobbled into a small army. I was a little bit of a man lost at sea — a bit of a nihilist.

Film became my refuge; and I interrogated the craft. Friends and relationships were what mattered, not math. Art offered me salvation for the time. Fuck your school, I thought.

The Workforce

So I wrote off school, and then came work.

I got a job at sixteen. I was a dishwasher. It’s strange because I came in with every intention of doing a good job. It was something different than school. True, they both were dumb and beneath me; but a job promised income, and income wasn’t nothing. I could buy shit with income.

As I write this, I pause and wonder, were my motives part of the problem? I wanted money, but what did I want to do with that money? I didn’t have a plan, outside of knowing I wanted to go to film school.

I don’t think many teenagers know why they work, but it doesn’t seem to prevent them from working. Perhaps it’s the fact that I need a why to justify mobilizing myself.

I was always told I’d have done very poorly in the military for that reason.

The Dishwasher Revelation

I digress.

As a dishwasher, I was grouped up with a familiar bunch of low-income children from the neighborhood. I knew them all, and none of them were exceptional students. Most were heavy into pot, drinking, and sex.

I expected they’d all drop out of school soon, and none would become people worthy of remembering or keeping in touch with. I didn’t actively think these things, but subconsciously I wrote them off.

It didn’t matter — they ate my lunch.

I was humbled when I opened the dishwasher in the midst of it running, and to this day I couldn’t tell you why. It sprayed water all over my face and I was mocked by a kid who’d smoked a joint behind the restaurant only minutes earlier.

This moment sticks out to me as the first time I asked myself: “Why the fuck can he do it, and I can’t?”

It was a question I could not casually answer, and it still persistently appears to this day.

The Pattern Repeats

I watched the stoner boy get promoted, while I was reprimanded for my lack of attention to detail.

I didn’t just think the job was beneath me — I knew it was. And when I say this, what I mean is this: it’s simple work. I should’ve been able to do it easily.

There are a multitude of operations that I am capable of performing, and they are all more complicated than operating a fucking dishwasher. I couldn’t do it to save my life.

I couldn’t pay attention.

Any promotions I received were due to personal favoritism; I had a colorful personality and a way of endearing myself to the people surrounding me.

It was certainly not due to any qualities I was demonstrating in the act of labor.

I was promoted to prep-cook, and promptly proceeded to slice my finger open.

I was witnessed dropping a piece of fish on the floor, then throwing it back on the table. Abysmal behavior.

And to this day I will maintain — I tried as hard as I could!

The reality was, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t force myself to give enough of a shit to do it right.

“If I Had To Do This Forever…”

At this point, one might argue, as I did to myself, that if my circumstances became dire or destitute, like the stoner kid’s lives probably were, then I might rise to the occasion.

If I truly needed the money, and wasn’t still living under the wing of Momma, I’d figure it out.

Well.

I had a short-lived manual labor position and I remember calling my mother and saying, “I actually cannot do this. If I have to do this for the rest of my life, I will kill myself.”

I meant it.

I can’t imagine being more miserable than doing the same damned thing over and over again.

I quit, much to the boss’s distaste.

The Job Hunt

Following that, I ran off to art school (shut up), graduated, and immediately went on the job hunt.

The market was scarce, but I did manage to get an interview for a drone-like job at Microsoft. It was copying data from one platform to another. Prices, descriptions, etc. Copy from here, paste in here. All day long.

Seemed like the easiest $30/hr a twenty-one-year-old could make.

I remember thinking I was a shoe-in for the job, then at the end of the interview, the manager of the team sat down and stared at me, and spoke very candidly.

“This is boring work. I know you can do it, but do you want to do it?”

Yes. I did. I wanted money. I wanted a job. I nodded back.

I looked over at the adjacent office and saw a friend from college staring at the screen, listening to his music and drinking a Mountain Dew.

“He’s great at this,” the manager went on. “He’s content, he can follow the rules.”

I nodded again. “So can I.”

“Are you sure? Because, a small mistake — simply moving a decimal point one position to the left, can result in thousands of dollars of loss for the company in a matter of minutes.”

I never received a callback, and now, fifteen years later, I am amazed by that man’s ability to read me like a book.

Maybe it was obvious to everyone.

Rock Bottom

To continue to recount job after job would be tedious. Suffice it to say, I was refused many positions except for the lowest.

My fall from grace was complete, and I found myself at rock bottom.

I had a short-lived stint at Fed-Ex and, believe me, I needed the money. I was renting an apartment and had a girlfriend, and it appeared as though my life might really be beginning in a meaningful way.

I proceeded to crash a company vehicle not once but twice, put someone’s important mail at the wrong house and — maybe not related but — bare witness to the actual death of an old man when I dropped off his package.

I tried to resuscitate him, but failed.

It seemed like I failed at everything.

The Whisper

I didn’t believe in God, but I was beginning to think I was actually cursed.

It was almost funny how certain I became about my next failure.

There was a lot of cynicism in my heart and mind, but beneath that there was a quiet, ever-present whisper.

The whisper I now believe was the voice of God.

The content of the whisper was something that took me the following fifteen years to embrace. In fact, I’m only embracing it now this year, the year in which I am writing this.

Maybe you can guess what the voice said —

“You’re failing because you’re not supposed to do this. You’ve always known what you’re supposed to do, and if you don’t pursue it you will be miserable.”

The Acceptance

Disorganized? Sure.
Marching to the beat of my own drum? Yes.

Are these qualities that result in a well-rounded member of the workforce? No.

Was I lazy? Not when I cared.

So what did I care about?

Well, that’s irrelevant. What do you care about?

If you find yourself in a situation similar to mine, heed the advice. Ignoring it is the worst thing you can do, because eventually, you’ll be forced to confront it.

The Lesson

In retrospect, I’m only haunted that it took me so long to submit and relent and accept that I need to do the thing I love.

It took years of breaking me down to prepare me for the work, the sacrifice and the hardship — to truly test my commitment to my passion.

Had I any doubts, I’d certainly have relented and set aside the arts.

I begged myself to just be a normal functioning adult who collects a paycheck. I couldn’t.

But here’s the best part — in the midst of asking, begging, for jobs, I was asking managers and job creators to assess my value.

I was breaking myself down further every time I faced rejection, or got accepted and proved to myself that I wasn’t worthy of that job.

Once I created my own job, I could prove my own value, and that value proved to be greater than I ever anticipated.

Seriously, I’ve had so many job offers since I started doing my own thing — each progressively offering more than the last.

As I continue on my own journey, I am proving my value in my own way.

The Moral

So I suppose the moral to the story is… fuck conformity?

We can discuss this further in a later musing.

— Have A Good Evening.