The Trials of Job

"If you look at any list of great modern writers such as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, you'll notice two things about them: 1. They all had editors. 2. They are all dead. Thus we can draw the scientific conclusion that editors are fatal."
- Dave Barry


It is normal, perhaps common, for one's job to intrude on their personal life. But today, in a philosophical way, my personal life actually intruded on my job. I usually take pains to keep the two separate, but in this case it was unavoidable.

I should back up.

There is an important distinction between a "job" and a "career." The term "job" is noncommittal, trivial, almost ephemeral. A "career," though, is more significant: it is determinitive, definitive. A job is what you do; a career is who you are.

For example:
My mother is a reading teacher. She has a career.
My friend ELE edits children's books. She has a job.
My friend ERD is a rock/music critic. He has a career.
I am the communications director for a small trade association. I think of it as a job, although after nine years I am creeping right up to the point where it might be considered a career.

Of course, you can go your whole life just working jobs, and maybe that's who you are -- a person who just can't sit still or figure it out. And likewise, you can be single-minded of purpose and still move from career to career. I'm not experienced enough to know this for sure, but I imagine a "job" to be like dating, and a "career" to be like marriage.

And a career is like marriage -- and children, and religion -- in that it is one of the things that people consciously seek to give their lives meaning. And this meaning creates identity.

When I think about my identity, I think of myself as a writer. That is what I am. That's how I see the world and how I express myself. And at the risk of immodesty, I feel like I'm pretty good at it. Often, my identity and my job work in concert, but they are not the same thing.

Today, my organization was invited to provide a short op-ed piece for a Capitol Hill newspaper web site. As communications director, it was my job to draft it. And so I did, crafting a brilliant 400-word opus from various talking points and previous statements, using dramatic themes, persuasive language and perhaps even a motif. and sent it off to my superiors for their review.

What I got back was a grotesque mutation. By the time my boss was finished, he had kept a total of two sentences and rewritten everything else. And most of the new language was written in provincial Lawyerese. I cannot lie, it hurt me. It was as if he had taken a red pen and stabbed my newborn baby.

And thus, my existential crisis: my pride as a writer, my identity, had been damaged by a stupid insignificant op-ed that maybe four people will ever read, three of whom are instinctively going to detest it. And it wasn't even being printed under my signature.

It's just part of my job. They paid me for my time, right? They can do what they want with my time. I allow them to crush my spirit in exchange for salary and health insurance. (In today's market, that's probably a bargain.)

Which is why I have to think of my work as just a job. If it was a career -- if it meant any more to me than it does now -- I'm not sure my fragile ego could handle it. Which makes me think that maybe I'm not ready to be a writer. Which calls into question my entire identity. Who am I, really? What am I?

Maybe I should have gone into math.