Writing and Failure...or how I lost my dream job

[Christine62]

A job where they pay you to write 8 hours a day plus benefits--what could be more perfect? Half the writing team had been there 10 plus years, so I thought this was it--this was to be my retirement job. But eight months in...and I've been terminated.

I couldn't dot the I's and cross the T's to their satisfaction, and the harder I tried, the more I failed. Word on the street about that department was they hired too many people and they were just whittling down to their core cronies who have been there forever.

When I think about it, it makes me feel sad, angry and bitter, not to mention humiliated that I couldn't master becoming the cookie cutter writer they wanted me to be.

My 30+ years as a member of the Baha'i Faith has helped me re-frame this event in the context of spiritual growth. Life is a soul school, my friends and everything (the good, the bad and the ugly) can teach us something if we but look for the lesson.

This job taught me that I can literally stand for 8 hours every day and write. (I was the only one in the place who rigged my desk so I could stand and write--it helped me stay alert and lose 25 pounds). It taught me to proofread and proofread and proofread some more (something I never did very well). This job eliminated my fear of commas--Say Amen!

Working this job made me realize, try as I might, I am not cut out for this kind of work--the letter of the law, instead the spirit. I have never been able to focus on the minutiae of most of the jobs I have ever had and eventually got fired--this last one is no different.

I was wallowing in this consistent failure day before yesterday while eating my weight in chips and watching Rachel Ray. She had some comedian on who said he was in comedy because he sucked at everything else. You and me both, buddy, I thought.

The only thing I'm good at is stories--I'm a storyteller. I see stories where no one sees anything. I took a bunch of creativity tests online the last couple of days and always scored in the "creative genius" category. Am I creative genius? Nah, but it made me feel a less of a total loser.

I remember reading a essay in the New Yorker a few years ago that had famous writers telling about getting fired from jobs. Mr. King told the story where he was on a road crew and after he got fired, went around stealing orange cones all over town. Joyce Carol Oats talked about working as a cashier at a diner and how she was too slow.

We see writers as some big egos who are somehow destined for greatness but maybe they just realized they sucked at everything else except writing and decided there was no other option for them.

I am deciding there is no other option for me. I have to write. I HAVE TO WRITE, DAMMIT! I have to put on my big girl writer panties, stand there and write my stories--the good, the bad and the ugly because I have nothing left.

It's nice to be back here, guys. Sorry, I've been gone so long.

 

[fushingfeef]

Welcome back Christine...sorry you lost your job, but you will always be able to make stories. You will find a way to get it out.

 

[Spideyman]

Good to see you back, Christine. Each job lost is a lesson- You have those stories within in, write them down- let them flow from the creative spirit that is within in. Write and write some more. When the time is right, the right opportunity will come along and preso- you have all your stories ready to go. Stay in the positives. Love and green lights!!

 

[DiO'Bolic]

Then write! And if you need a fall back position, I do see the makings of a wonderful Teacher in there.

 

[GNTLGNT]

...every closed door, leads to another open one...bless your heart and best of luck luv...

 

[Mr Nobody]

The only thing I'm good at is stories--I'm a storyteller. I see stories where no one sees anything. I took a bunch of creativity tests online the last couple of days and always scored in the "creative genius" category. Am I creative genius? Nah, but it made me feel a less of a total loser.

I remember reading a essay in the New Yorker a few years ago that had famous writers telling about getting fired from jobs. Mr. King told the story where he was on a road crew and after he got fired, went around stealing orange cones all over town. Joyce Carol Oats talked about working as a cashier at a diner and how she was too slow.

We see writers as some big egos who are somehow destined for greatness but maybe they just realized they sucked at everything else except writing and decided there was no other option for them.

I am deciding there is no other option for me. I have to write. I HAVE TO WRITE, DAMMIT! I have to put on my big girl writer panties, stand there and write my stories--the good, the bad and the ugly because I have nothing left.

It's nice to be back here, guys. Sorry, I've been gone so long.

I've never been fired from a job, but I've certainly walked away from a few - usually right around the time I could afford it least, but once (the most important time) when I absolutely needed to for my own sake.
It's not a popular opinion by any means, and I have been called all sorts for trying to get my point across in the past, but not everyone is cut out for a role in the regular, workaday world. You're expected to be, perhaps not least by yourself, but there it is. (There are people, usually actors or singers, that I look at and try to imagine in a 'regular' job and can't for the life of me.)
I've omitted the line, but those tests...well, maybe you are a creative genius. In itself, it means little or nothing. As you know (and as you've been doing in your old job), fulfillment of potential requires physical and mental effort. The proof of what the tests suggest will come from that.

Did I suck at everything else?...No. I was good at my old job(s). I'm good with numbers so accounts work, despite being inherently dull, wasn't a strain (which added to the dullness, but never mind).
By little escapade with Churchill's 'Black Dog' did for that, though, and by the time I'd got myself back together the ship had sailed. I did a degree to retrain in something, hoping to become an English teacher or secure something in publishing maybe, but neither of those paths led anywhere in the end, either - in five attempts to get into teacher training programmes, I was rejected twice and put on a standby list three times; the reason given on each occasion was a 'lack of classroom experience' compared to other candidates...but that's what training should be for, right, at least in part?
Whatever. I soon ended up looking at finance roles again. But I hadn't done the work in seven or eight years. The packages firms were using were mostly the same - Sage 50, etc - but I'd been out of the game too long and didn't really want to spend up to £1500 I didn't have on retraining courses that still might leave me nowhere.
I'd been writing throughout this period (throughout my life, actually), and writing became my 'zero option' whether I was any good at it or not.
That, again, has been met with hostility several times, from several quarters - some surprising, some not. It is, however, what I have (and what, secretly, a fairly large part of me has/had wanted since I was old enough to understand that people got paid for telling stories, though back then I had no idea of potentially how much that was and didn't care. I still don't care. Even if I only got the same as a bus driver (some hope! I'm nowhere near matching their pay! ) it'd be good enough for me).
Either way, when I say I have to write, I mean it two ways...as, it seems, do you.

 

[kingricefan]

Best of luck! Follow your heart, luv, for it knows what feeds your soul.

 

[Grandpa]

I couldn't dot the I's and cross the T's to their satisfaction, and the harder I tried, the more I failed.

Then it was not your "dream job."

The only thing I'm good at is stories--I'm a storyteller. I see stories where no one sees anything.

Then that is your dream job. You just might need something in the meantime that pays the rent and groceries.

I am deciding there is no other option for me. I have to write. I HAVE TO WRITE, DAMMIT!

I identify. I imagine a lot of us identify. Mr. King would probably identify. In On Writing, he talks about things he did to pay the bills while he wrote. It's good direction.

Best of luck. I mean that sincerely.