Monday
05May
About My New Job
May 5, 2008 at 09:44PM I get very tired on my new job and don't feel much like writing but it's not a bad job-- had I landed this same job 20 years ago I would have thought it easy work even though the lifting is sometimes heavy and the work is almost always dirty. When the sun shines I get hot and when it rains I get wet but I run my boss's office.
Sometimes I just can't keep up. Sometimes I make dumb mistakes.
My job is to spend my boss's money. No, I can't spend it on just anything but I spend it just the same. Other times I collect money for my boss. Sometimes my job requires I use the Internet but usually I don't. I don't yet know how much my boss is going to pay me but he seems like a very good man who will probably pay me as much as he can afford to pay me.
Most of our customers are poor and are in fact the very people I give my boss's money to. A few of them are fairly well-to-do but even the well-to-do customers really hard and do some really tough work that most people would never consider doing. Some of them are criminals, some drunks, many are drug addicts and several are homeless and living on the streets of Greensboro. Some of the people I give my boss's money to are just like me while others are very different. All of them-- even the bad ones and the few I don't like-- are good people.
My new job is green and good for the environment but most folks-- including the greens-- don't want my job in their neighborhoods. My job makes Greensboro, North Carolina and the rest of the world a better place but Greensboro doesn't want my job to be here and have gone so far as to attempt to put my boss out of business.
My new job helps support the war in Iraq and increases the number of American jobs that go to China. Neither are what my boss was planning to do but that's where there's a market for what we sell. There was a time when this market was almost 100% American but no more.
In doing my new job I deal with buyers and sellers of several different products. Currently the prices of the things in which we deal are at unheard of high prices but those prices dipped over the weekend. Most of what we buy and sell is in very high demand but there are some things people must pay us to take off their hands.
Sometimes my boss has to pay folks to take products from him.
There's a lot of very heavy equipment associated with my job along with lots of very big trucks and while I'm able to operate those trucks and equipment I never do. You see, it's my job to spend the boss's money.
The best part of my job is dealing with the poor and homeless people I see every day. The worst part of my job is dealing with the poor and homeless people I see every day.
I'll not tell you who I work for or what I do, nor will I tell you what goes on at my job. It's the sort of job that most of you would never be willing to do. There was a time in my own life when I'd have never been willing to do my new job.
Going back to work makes me feel as if I've failed at being a writer and wasted the last 13 or 14 years of my life.
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments (6)
Billy, you are anything BUT a failure! I understand that it feels that way now, but be aware of the bigger picture. You had a dream to write a book, and you did that. You have planned and mobilized you energy to put yourself in a position to be more self-sufficient at your house with the rainwater collection, chickens, etc. You have held your ground against undesirable elements in your neighborhood.
I could go on, even with the little I know of you (relatively), but you get the idea.
Every door that closes is one that opens. Cliche, I know, but true nevertheless. You're doing fine, and I'm proud to know you. Keep up the good work.
Doug
PS, sounds like interesting work.
Billy,
Anyone who works for the homeless/needy are amazing people. You give YOUR time and YOUR help to those less fortunate and in my eyes that makes you an incredible person. You are NO way a failure in any shape or form.
You are a great writer Billy, how many people can say that they have written a book?.....not many ;-)
Doug, Stacy,
Thank you both, it means a lot.
Billy, you know how Budd and I feel about you and we are very proud of you. You are the farthest thing from a failure that you can be.
I think I've read somewhere that only a half of a percent of this country's writers do it full time. Or maybe that's novelists. Either way, writing full-time is not an option for the vast majority of people who have to make a living for themselves.
Tina, Verona,
Thanks... The problem with writing for a living is user generated content which has become the NAFTA of the publishing industry. Sadly, as even now MSM is adopting UGC they are sealing their own fates.