The Cerebral Catalyst

09/24/03
Today, I'm going to discuss a topic that will be painful for many of you. But if you're serious about being a wanderer, and you're as broke as I am, it's bound to come up sooner or later. It's inevitable. And you should be prepared to have the proper mindset with which to attack the inevitability. Today, we're going to talk about work.

I know. I can feel you cringing from here. Yes, I know that at night you dream of the Heaven of peaceful unemployment. Believe me, so do I. But until writing cheesy columns starts paying the rent, even your Uncle Josh has to take that filthy old bus downtown each morning, along with millions of other fast food grunts, janitors, bartenders and store clerks. But why should we settle for the job of a sucker? Let me just explain, for all of you future dishwashers and waitresses out there, why the suckah's work ain't all bad.

Last month, my boss at the Barnes & Noble asked me if I'd be interested in picking up some extra hours by working in the bookstore's cafe. I hesitated for a moment, but I soon saw the potential benefits of adding "latte jockey" to my list of skills. First off, as I already mentioned, I'm dead broke, but I also knew that the skill of making coffee is one that could be invaluable for a dude who will probably end up wandering aimlessly after graduation.

That's right college grads, you can see the current job market as clearly as I can. And sometimes, you just can't wait through six months of sending out resumes and pretending to be obsequious and jumping through the asinine little power-trip hoops common to office jobs everywhere. Whether you're wandering or waiting, you still gotta eat, and that's why crappy jobs exist.

To explain what I mean, here are a couple of sample job interviews:

You: Hi. I'd like a job. I have a master's degree is English Literature.
Interviewer for a high-paying company: Good for you. Please don't call us again.

You: Hi. I'm desperate and I know how to work an espresso machine.
Manager at Starbucks: Grab an apron.

And so I returned to the land of food preparation, a land I hadn't dared to go near since my old dishwashing days. Right off, I noticed a few similarities. The uniforms were the same: white buttoned & collared shirt, and black pants. Every chain restaurant on the planet requires this uniform of their backhouse workers. Why? To break our spirits. OK, that's not true, and I don't know the real reason why, but it is upsetting to start a new job where you're required to wear the same color scheme as the Imperial Stormtroopers.

See this? It's a Hobart dishwashing machine, and you're not going to avoid getting to know one of these intimately unless your parents got you a trust fund for your eighteenth birthday. And how many people with trust funds read this column? Actually, seeing that shiny Hobart logo was the most comforting thing I found when venturing into the cafe's backhouse. It's hard to explain if you've never been a dishwasher, but I like to think that, after years of operating one of the gigantic buffet-grade models, that I've developed a relationship with the machines akin to that of a rustic stableboy and the horses he tends. Wait, wait — that's just sick. Forget I said anything. Stupid machine.

Don't believe me? That's what the Ponderosa dishroom looked like, waaaay back in highschool. These aren't glory days I'm talking about here. But it's not all bleak! Consider a few things about crappy jobs before you start looking for a Sharpie marker and a big piece of cardboard. 1.) If you don't like your job, you won't feel the least bit sorry about quitting, and it's easy to find a new one. 2.) Let me repeat that: they're easy to get. You need some fast cash? Grab an apron, and hang in there. 3.) You'll get some nifty scars on your hands, not to mention calluses, and that makes you a bad ass. Really. 4.) Intellectual freedom. These jobs aren't going to tax your brain, and that means that your mind is going to have plenty of time working on other things while your hands are grinding to the bone. You can mentally write stories or songs, puzzle over philosophical paradoxes, or even map out your plan for eventual world domination, all in the safe knowledge that even the tallest of burger orders won't be too challenging to get in the way. To explain what I mean about intellectual freedom, let me tell you a little story about one man who turned a sucky job into an art form.

Now, coffee shops and fast-food joints are all well and good, but there is one job that is, without question, the mightiest of all stupid jobs, ever. At least, the mightiest since the days of wisecracking Shakespearean gravediggers. That job is dishwashing. Don't believe me? Then consider Dishwasher Pete, a man who is a better wanderer, obscure magazine writer, and dishwasher than I will ever be.

Back in the mythical magical 1990s, a man named Pete set out on a quest: he would wash dishes in all fifty states, and he would write about it. But he wouldn't do it methodically, heck no! He would wander aimlessly, and just take jobs as he found them. His only criteria was that it had to be a job that he could quit at any time, thus securing his freedom. Pete went forth across the nation on his mission, and he chronicled his adventures in an impossible-to-find self-published magazine called Dishwasher. I still have the copy of issue #15 that my wandering cousin Tim gave me years ago, but beyond that, Dishwasher is even harder to find than that novel written by Kilgore Trout. In the end, Dishwasher Pete worked over a hundred dishwashing jobs, in thirty-three states. He's in college now. And while the mission was technically never finished (yet), he still deserves to be called one of the greatest wanderers of all time, and certainly the greatest dishwasher of all time.

What does this mean for you? Oh, you don't need to wash dishes because it's your sacred mission; that can't work for everyone. But Pete has proven that it can be done, that you can wander, retain your freedom, and do the occasional stupid job when you need to eat. Dishwashing jobs, by the way, are even easier to get than coffee shop jobs.

There's the only issue of Dishwasher I've been able to find (Thanks, Cousin Tim!), next to a piece of the Hobart machine motor from an old job, that I kept as a souvenir. Souvenirs are important, because you can keep them on your desk next to the computer, so that when you're writing that best-selling novel, you know exactly what sort of day job you're trying to escape. And isn't that what it's really all about? Living without a day job. At least, that's what it's all about for me.

Cheers!

Click here for more adventures.

______________________________________
Joshua C. Clark is the Editor-in-Chief and Webmaster of The Cerebral Catalyst. He lives in New York City. He has cool hair. E-mail him at editor@cerebralcatalyst.com.

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