Rude Awakening.

The saga continues.

Under the circumstances, having just graduated from college, I took the first JOB I was offered. The dream of becoming a novelist got tossed into a box. Years passed in a haze of paychecks, office politics, and settling into a work routine that included a mind-numbing forty-five-minute commute in traffic the likes I had never before seen. I was sitting down in my cube one morning when it hit me, I really didn’t want to do this for the rest of my life.

I flashed back to an earlier experience where I had just survived a similar 45-minute commute, and was settling into my cube when the boss casually dropped a newspaper article on my desk. The title of the article? “Dressing for Success” or some other such nonsense. I'm "assuming" he was trying to drop a subtle hint that my business casual attire was more casual than business.

Unphased, I read through the article. It told me nothing I didn’t already know but one of the tips jumped out at me, “Dress for the position you want, not the position you have.” I highlighted that line and wrote a note to my boss on a post-it that I strategically stuck underneath the line. My note read, “If I dress for the position I want, I’d come in every day wearing my fuzzy robe, comfy pajamas, and slippers because what I really want to do is stay at home and write.” I gave the article and post-it back to my boss. He left me alone after that. The feeling of wanting to earn a living from my storytelling did not.