Something You Love

When I was 4, I wanted to be a fireman, just like every 4-year-old boy is supposed to, I guess. And the only reason I can think of is because I was obsessed with fire then. Like, in an unhealthy, pyromaniacal way. I remember my father took me once to watch a house burn. I’m not sure how he knew about it, but I remember sitting in his truck and watching somebody’s house burn and just being fascinated by the way the fire consumed everything, the colors it made, the way I could feel the heat from it even though I was safe in my father’s truck with the window rolled up. I loved fire, so I guess I thought I should be a fireman. I was four years old. What the fuck did I know?

Of course, what I wanted to be when I grew up changed over the years. I wanted to be Wonder Woman, too. And Han Solo. Also Beverly Johnson on the cover of Vogue and Nina Hagen and Peter Pan and Barbra Streisand and Damita Jo Freeman on Soul Train. I had range, apparently.

When I discovered Stephen King—you know, the way Columbus “discovered” America: he was already there and I just needed to stumble across him at the library—I pivoted to wanting to be a writer. And when I told people this, you’d think I’d told them I wanted to be a serial killer when I grew up. At first, there was silence. Like, the silence of outer space. Then they smiled and told me “You can be anything you want to be.” Boomers were (and still are) unmatched at vacuous inspirational quotes.

“You can do anything you set your mind to.”

“Believe in yourself and there’s nothing you can’t achieve.”

“Just do it!”

Of course, they didn’t tell you how to do it. Or what “it” was, but who cares? Do it. Do anything, as long as it’s an it. Believe in yourself. Why? Because no one else will. They sure won’t. You can do anything… as long as they don’t have to be involved in it. Boomers were (and still are) unmatched in their ability to dissociate.

My mother and her husband took great pleasure in telling me I could be anything I wanted to be, I just needed to set my mind to it and it would just manifest itself. Oh, it costs? Psych! You’re on your own, sorry, we didn’t sign up for that part. Hahaha!

Whatever.

Another thing they enjoyed telling me and my sisters was “When you get out on your own, you can do whatever you want.” This was in response to anything we said that disparaged their rules or their parenting style. Then, of course, when we got out on our own and did the things we wanted to do, that was a problem, too, because we didn’t include them. Of fucking course we didn’t include them! What the hell did they expect?

Anyway… I digress.

When I made it to my 20s, the new mantra for all working adults was “Do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life!” I don't know who said it first, but I swear, I heard it on every fucking 90s talk show at least twice a week. It was a particular favorite of trust fund twenty-and thirtysomethings who’d inherited multi-million-dollar corporations and who didn’t really have to work, because they had people to run the corporation for them, and who also didn’t have to love the corporation they’d inherited. They just loved the money. And the ease of acquiring it.

I loved writing. I wanted to do that. But I was a line cook, and none of the talking heads parroting this inspirational pearl accompanied it with a map or, hell, even a checklist. Apparently, you just woke up one day and began doing what you loved instead of what you didn't love and everything fell into place. Rent paid itself. Food bought itself. Your car filled itself with gas.

I fell for it, too. Writing had always been something I did at night, in secret, after working my “real” job. I've always hated when people say that: “real” job. Like there are jobs that aren't actually work. It sounds classist and elitist, and it is, because the people who say it are the ones who do the least work and make the most money at their own jobs. Or they're the self-proclaimed busy, stay-at-home rockstar mommies who only value occupations like their husbands’, so the work everyone else does isn't *real* work, and everyone is just in transit and will soon have the same kind of job their husband has. Because they're out of touch.

But I fell for the bullshit. People told me not to count on writing as a lucrative career, and I believed them. I was already working in restaurants, so why not just keep doing that? Why not take the promotion when they offer it? More money and a better schedule, right? Ha! Wrong. Well, more money, yes, but also more hours, which meant less time and less energy to write at night.

When I was in high school and it was time to get a job, you had maybe ten choices: fast food restaurants, grocery stores, Wal-Mart or K-Mart, a gas station, or wherever in the mall would hire teenagers—record stores, bookstores, video stores, whatever. I did a summer at my family’s chain of gas stations in Alabama.

And when it was Career Day for the juniors and seniors, all those places showed up and you applied to them and they either called you or they didn't. More often than not, they didn't. But the fast food places always did. Full-service, chef-driven restaurants never showed up for Career Day, and when it was time for colleges and technical schools to come and lie to the juniors and seniors about what working for them would be like. Sara Moulton and Gourmet magazine never showed up. Emeril Lagasse never showed up. I’m sure they went to other, better Career Days at other, better high schools and academies, but my high school got Applebee’s.

My first job was Pizza Hut. Waiting tables. I wasn’t nice enough, though, and I didn’t give a shit about people’s dietary restrictions—it’s fucking Pizza Hut, Beverly, what do you expect your low-carb, low-fat options to be? One lady complained to my manager that I didn’t show her kids any attention. My manager laughed and told her “Ma’am, if he didn’t speak to your kids, he was doing you a favor.” Plus, it wasn’t my job to entertain her kids. She needed to go to Chuck E. Cheese for that. I was just some punky kid waiting tables for beer money. Anyway, a couple weeks after that, she moved me to the kitchen and I was much better suited to that.

It paid shit and if I’d been out on my own, I wouldn’t have been able to support myself on what I made, but it was a job and it introduced me to people I wouldn’t have met otherwise. Like, school is great and all, but you see those people five days a week for four years and nothing excites you anymore. So, getting a job and meeting people from other schools, meeting adults and working alongside them—it was fun. It was hot and noisy and Friday and Saturday nights fucking sucked, but when it was over, you went drinking with the people you’d just got your ass kicked with. Maybe someone would have some weed. Maybe one of the cute straight boys would get drunk enough to let you give him a blow job.

I liked it. And when I went to college, I stayed at it, though I did move “up,” so to speak—I went wherever there was more money. But the restaurants were all the same, they just had different names. Different kitchen crews. Different managers with outdated hairstyles and nicotine addictions. Different straight boys who’d let me suck them off when they got drunk enough.

This was all through high school and through my 20s.

When I turned 30, I stumbled across a show called Cooking Live Primetime on The Food Network. It was canceled long ago, but it was Sara Moulton, the executive chef at Gourmet magazine cooking with other professional restaurant chefs. They'd cook and laugh and tell stories about working in the industry and it was packaged so well that I bought it. I thought being a professional chef in the restaurant industry would be hanging out with other chefs on TV, telling the story of how you woke up one day and knew it was what you were born to do and if you didn't do it, your life would never be complete.

So, I thought Hey, I have all these years and years of experience working in restaurant kitchens, and I love to cook—what if I applied to one of these culinary schools I hear Sara Moulton and her friends talk about? What if I got a degree and got a job in a real restaurant, with a chef? What if I became a chef, too?

It was surprisingly easy to get accepted to culinary school, but I felt like I’d really accomplished something. Of course, when I got there and saw all the idiots who could barely string together words to form a sentence, much less follow recipes and learn techniques, I admit—I felt a little cheated. Like, if those people got accepted, they must just accept everyone who applies. As long as the money’s good, right?

And speaking of money—I went from making $60K a year to making $9.25 an hour at my first real restaurant job, under a real chef who threatened to drag me out the back door and kick my ass every night. But something kept me going back. If you’d asked me then, I would have said it was my passion that kept me going back. The restaurant industry loves that word: passion. They want everyone to have it, whether you’re a line cook or a server or a dishwasher. It’s laughable now, but I fell for that shit hard. And they exploited it. Every job I’ve had in the last twenty years has absolutely exploited the fact that I wanted, with every fiber of my being, to do something I loved doing.

And no, I am not saying that it’s impossible to make a living doing something you love. I just need people to understand that it is the exception, not the rule. I know attorneys who make shit tons of money and hate what they do. I know doctors who leave the profession because they hate it. They didn’t think they would, but they do. Because they were told to do something they love to do, but no one told them what to do if the something they loved didn’t love them back.

See, there is precedent for interpersonal relationships that don’t work out: you break up, or if you’re married, you get a divorce. Oh, you love him, but he doesn’t love you? Leave his ass. Done.

But you spent $55K to get a degree so you could do something you love and the entire industry is set up to exploit and take people for granted, then trap them with long hours and too many days, and now you’re not happy? BUT YOU SAID YOU HAD A PASSION FOR IT!!! Like you just said that to get your foot in the door. Like you can’t change your mind when you realize the entire industry is a fucking shit hole. But toxic industries know they’re toxic and all their messaging is to trick you. They’ll put “quality of life” and “work-life balance” in the ad and in their mission statement, and in the job description they give you—but pay attention when they say shit like “Well, everyone here does whatever it takes!” or “We all pitch in to make it happen.” That is coded language for you will be working more than the ad and the job description said. You will be working on your days off. You will have to cancel vacations and reschedule them.

I’ve had to do all that. All because I thought I would do something I love.

My advice is this: don’t do what you love, do something that will allow you to do something you love.

Insist on 40 hours and get it in writing. Turn your phone off at night. Don’t answer emails. In fact, leave the work laptop at work. Schedule your vacations months in advance and keep reminding people when you won’t be available. And if this is a job at Starbucks, then work at Starbucks. Or wherever. Figure out what you need to live and make that, then in your off-time, at night, in secret or not, do the thing or things you love, that fulfill you and make your soul sing. But don’t ever think, not for a fucking second, that the person you work for is ever going to help you love what you do. Because you are there to make sure they love what they do, which is make the most money from the least amount of work themselves.

You’re on your own. We all are.