It wasn’t until I wrote the fourth book (A Quarter) that I at last had one of those “know thyself” moments. I have been laid off or fired from nearly two dozen jobs. I’m smart, very good at solving problems…but I don’t fit in with corporate culture. I don’t even fit in with anti-establishment culture. Here is an incomplete inventory of the jobs where I had to quit or was let go for incompetence, under-agedness, or spite:

• Vallejo Times Herald – Paper boy
• William Morris Reproductions – Wallpaper sample pack creator
• Union Hotel – Busboy
• Varsity Theater – Ticket vendor
• Second Coming Records – Store clerk
• Patricia Field – Shop girl
• Milk Bar – Janitor and Barback
• Diggery Inn – Dishwasher
• Stud Bar Barback
• Sparky’s – Prep cook
• Grubstake – Dishwasher
• International Center -Towel boy
• Marcello’s Pizza – cashier
• Broadmoor Hotel – Slave/Waiter
• Peachy’s Puffs – Cigarette boy
• New Line Cinema – 3rd Production Accountant
• Tupperware Lady
• Sixteen to Life – Assistant to Executive Producer
• Married to the Kellys – Assistant to Line Producer
• New Line Cinema – Product placement assistant
• Ascent Media – Project manager
• Miller Group – Advertising account manager
• Deluxe Media – Billing process manager

A few jobs in my life were a decent match. They ended for reasons like a major geographical move, or widespread layoffs:

• Marriott’s Great America – Self-reflexive juice salesman
• Tower Records – Store clerk
• TimeShare Consultants – Phone sex bookkeeper filer and dog walker
• Italian Welfare Agency – Social worker
• Italian Cultural Institute – Event promoter, News segment producer and Radio DJ
• Lavender Lounge – Segment producer
• New Line Cinema -Post production accountant
• Verestar – Global account manager
• The Acres – Musician
• La Lucha – Producer/Director/Writer/Editor
• Deluxe Media – Manager – Overseas Back Office
• Psychotic Break Series – Author

The primary pattern: I need to express myself and feel good about the work I’m doing. I need to be in a group of similarly creative and quirky outcasts. I have waxing and waning periods of creativity and energy, so I need to have a job that lets me make my own hours or is only intermittent work. Travel and languages keep me interested for a while, too. Tower Records was a really great group of people. I loved working there. Second Coming Records was hell in a glass box. I write about them in the prequel. Several people who worked there have been diagnosed with PTSD. So, if I’m going to work for the man, the boss better be cool.