Writing nine to five...

Is that a luxury you dream of or have achieved, or a fate you actively dread?

‘Labor is the curse of the writing class.’ So Says Ed Simon in his fascinating article, On Writers & Their Day Jobs (The Literary Hub), in which he reminds us that William Carlos Williams wrote poems on his prescription pad, Franz Kafka chafed against his role as an insurance agent and Harper Lee paid the bills as an airline ticketing agent. These few examples among many debunk the two polar images of writerly slogging: the garret-based writer starving on crumbs of ideas and the person of monied leisure penning their way to literary achievement.

Nowadays, more than ever, a writer has to wear several hats. I think many would contend that their day jobs, whether they take the form of a linear career or a series of side hustles, complement and stimulate writing output and help a writer to structure time wisely, as long as they’re not too exhausted from and demoralised by all the concomitant responsibilities (childcare, in-law wrangling, staying on the line for a GP appointment because you’re only 67th in the queue, etc).

A delicate balancing act indeed.

‘I work, therefore I write.’ Possibly… Credit: StockSnap

It got me thinking about my less successful forays into the workplace that nevertheless fed the writing habit and introduced me (not always willingly) to a broad cross-section of humanity.

The au pair
I did this for about three weeks for a very good reason (we’ll come to that). I wasn’t too terrible at the role, considering that my sole experience of other people’s children up to then was learning not to stand at a bus stop in the rain where schoolkids on the top deck of a passing bus could spit chewing gum onto my open brolly.
Anyway, in this shortlived role I made a lot of pasta and arbitrated a lot of toy ownership disputes but basically, they were two good kids. Then one of them gave me chickenpox. I was 17 and I’d never had chickenpox. Five minutes later, I looked like The Singing Detective. Nobody wants to see that, so I was sent packing.

The wages clerk
If the wages of sin are death, the payoff for working in an environment for which you have zero aptitude is constant anxiety and humiliation. Every day was torment as I trudged into the offices of a local sweet factory with my banana sandwiches and copy of Madame Bovary (I was 18). My standout contribution during my tenure was printing 800 clock cards upside down. Meanwhile, my brother enjoyed the cushier option of working on the night shift, standing on a stepladder pouring mint essence into a giant funnel. Them’s the breaks.

Operating theatre cleaner
Now 19 and a full-time student, I was saving up for my Interrail trip. All I had to do was don surgical scrubs and work quickly between ops with a lot of disinfectant and a steady mop arm. I also had to hose down the surgeons’ rubber footwear (we’ll draw a veil), but I volunteered for a theatre gig in order to escape the far more onerous task of ward-cleaning.

The fact I’m still talking and thinking about these jobs years later goes to show how they imprinted themselves on memory. I haven’t even touched on all the people l met (some also imprinted on memory, for better or worse).
Of course, I’ve had lots of more conventional roles, but I’ve always enjoyed veering off-piste, such as the time I minded a friend’s knitwear stall for ‘five minutes’ (it turned into two hours) and had to describe her wares to prospective buyers wanting to know what breed of goat had been used for the cashmere (my answer: ‘woolly’).

I’d love to hear what unusual or illuminating roles you’ve had and how they may have fitted or fit around your writing routine!

Credit: AdrianMedia