New Guy

I think the worst part of starting a new job is being the "new guy". It's like everyone around you is just watching and waiting for you to screw up. Don't let him do that, he's the new guy! Don't let him talk to a customer, he's the new guy! Well, of course he hit the one button on the POS computer that crashes the whole system and sets off the fire alarm. He's the new guy!

It's this fear of embarrassment that keeps us stagnant. Following the same routines, making the same choices, working at the same dead-end jobs. Soon we discover we've become experts in things we never found interesting in the first place, and that's when the mid-life crises start to hit. We take classes in art and ballroom dancing, write "bucket lists" and travel to foreign countries we don't know anything about. And we do all this in increasing desperation and without any real sense of purpose, because back when we were getting established we settled for being comfortable instead of going after whatever it was we really wanted.

So this is what I tell people who wonder why I'm still scraping to get by - bouncing from one part-time day-job to the next while I try to find my place in this era's vast array of literature and entertainment. Seems like I've been the "new guy" in the world of writing for at least a decade. But I stick it out because at the end of the day I find it more rewarding to be uncomfortable than uninteresting.

At least that's what I'd like to tell people. I usually just shrug and mutter some platitude under my breath. What? they ask. Don't bother me, I'm writing.