A while back I read Jeff Strand's The Writing Life, which I found very enjoyable. There was a part he wrote about writing while at work, and that struck home with me because I've done that very same thing in the very same way. And I'm going to tell you about it now.
I'm not counting the time I worked for my dad at his restaurant when I visited him out in Vegas while I was maybe in eighth grade. I will never forget my stepmom looking at him incredulously when he did this. "He's on vacation, and you're putting him to work?!?!?!?!"
And I can't tell you about writing at work now because there is no downtime. There isn't a moment where I can take a breath except when I'm on lunch. I've written while on lunch, but it is impossible to do so while on the clock.
Let's start with my first job, as a page at the Elmhurst Public Library. If you don't know what a page is, that's someone who shelves books that have been returned and that have been left on tables throughout the library. They also make the shelves look orderly and make sure the books are actually in order. I was able to write in short bursts while in the stacks, but I had to keep an eye out for supervisors. I could fool the patrons but not the sups. This got a lot easier when I graduated to the circulation desk. That's where I learned that when you're writing something down, you look busy. Looking busy means that you're doing your job. When you're doing it at the desk, especially if you're at the library card registration part, you can also fool the sups. They sometimes stationed me at the greeting desk, which made things even easier because no one checks on you when you're there. I could have probably written while I was working A/V repair, but part of my duty was to watch movies I'd just repaired.
Writing on the job at the City of Elmhurst Public Works was a lot harder, considering that my job was being the parts driver. It's hard to write and drive at the same time. However, if I was sent out on a long drive I could stop off for my break and use the extra time to write because they didn't expect me back for a while.
I worked for two weeks selling ad space for a few local newspapers. I sucked at the job and was fired pretty quickly, but they knew I was a writer and published three of my stories. I couldn't write at that job, though, because it's where I learned that sales jobs really had no downtime. BUT! I worked at the Drury Lane Oakbrook Theatre selling season tickets. I did a lot of writing on break (drinking free Coke because that was a great perk), but I did even more when I got there before anyone else did. Make a few calls, write a page, make a few more calls, etc. The same for when I got to stay late. You can't call anyone after 9 pm, which was quitting time, but they let me put together Excel spreadsheets for sales leads. I'm a fast typist, so I was able to sneak some writing in there, too.
Working at Conference Plus was easy writing time. I was a conference operator, meaning I introduced and concluded calls, and I ran the Q&A sessions. Polling, too, if needed, but that was a rarity. The rest of the time I wrote during those calls. That's anything between 30 minutes to 3 hours. Very few calls made it that long, but some did. When I graduated to the tech support team, I still got writing done. The reason was, we answered calls from people who needed web or audio help, and that was it. I wrote between calls, and there was a lot of time for that. Unless, of course, there was an outage. Those sucked.
When I worked at Call One, it was more of the same. As long as I didn't miss any calls and kept my tickets up to date and kept customers updated at the expected times, then all was good. Once again, writing at work makes you look busy. Looking busy means you're doing your job.
I miss having downtime. That was when I usually got to know my coworkers to the point of becoming friends outside of the office. The job I work now? I don't really know my coworkers. I know their names and I say hi to them, but there isn't time for conversation in a sales environment. Maybe someday . . .
I left out the time I worked at Sears selling shoes. I didn't write on that job. It was so fucking miserable that I wasn't even in the mood to do so while on lunch. Fuck that job.
No comments:
Post a Comment