Is This Good For the Company?

It’s been a handful of years since I worked in the business world but last night while Matt and I talked about work and companies in general it hit me. There are solid reasons why I left the rat race to pursue the life of a starving artist but none are clearer than the way business is done in Corporate American society.

Last weekend we tossed on a classic favorite, Office Space, and although we laughed, that might have just been the five bottles of sake rearing their head because the real comedy, is that it’s serious (thanks Jason).

When Matt and I started broaching the subject about the life of a corporate sheep, er, uh, I mean, employee last night it hit me that, no matter what, every single boss everywhere is Lumberg. I suddenly realized that I never wanted to be Lumberg and that’s essentially the main reason I work alone. But it really doesn’t exempt me from anything.

I got to talking about just why every single boss is like Lumberg and realized that in all companies, yes mine included, there are really only ever three questions that need answering.

1. Can I do this?
2. How long ago can it be completed?
3. How much am I going to make?

Truthfully we talked through the entire Bruins game last night and no matter what "yeah, but[s]" we tried to throw out there, every single issue, success, question, and model in business ended up coming back to nothing more than answering those three questions.

I’m certainly guilty of it, even as an artist running my finishing business, because I need to be sure that it’s a job I can actually complete before I agree to doing it (#1), that I work quickly and efficiently so the homeowner can get their space back again (#2) and of course that I make enough to cover materials plus my time and labor (and a profit never hurts of course) (#3). Anything else discussed with a homeowner or other industry professional will always go back to those three question’s answers.

For me that’s fine because I have no one to answer to other than myself and my clients right? If they see #3 and its too high a price #’s 1 & 2 don’t really matter anymore because I’m not doing the job. Period. Not to mention, because I work solo, I don’t have eight different bosses coming by to tell me about mistakes I made (#1) that are sure to cost the company time (#2) and money (#3).

But Matt does.

Matt has someone he needs to answer to at all times in his job. Well, he has only one boss, but sometimes with the pressure it sounds like he is under on a daily basis it might as well be eight.

So what does that mean for Matt? I suppose that if he goes into his job with the knowledge that, no matter what, his boss, co-workers, employees (and even himself!), are trying to answer those questions at every turn he might be able to approach work from a different angle. Maybe not but at least he can try to laugh about any and all situations that arise because regardless of the drama, it’s always all about three little answers.

He said he wants to get the questions printed as a poster. I can only assume he would like to hang it in his office in an attempt to passive-aggressively annoy his boss.

Of course by doing that he could get fired and then he’s certainly not making very much is he (#3)?

Then again, it would mean channeling his inner Peter (the character in the movie that every employee longs to be at one time or another) and then he might just not care anymore (bye-bye #'s 1 & 2!).

I’m thinking of getting it printed up on a tee shirt for him for Valentine’s Day. I’m just trying to figure out the best header to go above the questions, for descriptive purposes of course.

Luckily my printing it isn’t a business or else I’d have to answer those three questions before I could even come up with a header.

I Refuse to Go Out Quietly

In like a lion, out like a tyrannosaurs rex with a toothache. That’s how I plan to get the hell out of Massachusetts.

I just can’t pretend to be a positive, roses and rainbows shooting out of my ass kind of person all the time. Sometimes I need to be pissed off. Sometimes I need to cry, vent, scream, consider leaving everything and everyone in the middle of the night and never looking back. Yes that includes Matt. Yes that includes myself.

This winter has got me spazzing out. I mean more so than any other winter before it. The dark parts of my brain, the murky sludge that I usually only reserve for my incidents of road rage, are spilling over the edge of the infinity pool and seeping into the crevices of my generally happy personality.

And fuck it. You know why? Because I can’t always be fucking happy. I can’t always see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can’t always be this upbeat, positive clone of the self help cookie cutter nation. And I don’t need you to tell me to be, I don’t need a fucking cheerleader. I need to scream, to vent, to curse as much as I like, to be angry and tell anyone saying things like ‘I love love!’ to just fuck right off.

My roses and rainbows became covered in ice, wilted and snapped off only to be plowed up with the snow into a big gray pile of muck onto the curbside. A place that is quickly diminishing in size as we speak.

I don’t expect to win the popular vote here, and frankly that’s of no consequence to me anymore. New readers might be highly offended but you know something, I’m not sorry. It’s not my fault you’re offended, this is my journal and I can say anything I like. If you can’t handle it then that’s that then. So be it. The people who are still around clearly get it, and me, and I could probably name them right now. But I won’t. I’ll let all of you decide for yourselves.

The thing is I admit to being multiple personality, bipolar, schitzo or whatever the fuck you want to call it. Sure I own a company and gee aren’t we always supposed to put our best foot forward on the internet so all our many customers (read: 2) will understand we’re the most awesome of awesomeness? Yeah. Okay. Whatever.

One of my two customers will probably offer to give me a high five after reading this for finally getting it the fuck off my chest so I’m not really too worried about it.

As far as the other one is concerned…guess time will tell on that. Oh well.

I snapped hardcore yesterday or the day before, I don’t really remember and I’m not going searching to find out. But ask Matt and he’ll tell you that he was probably even a little afraid of me. Well maybe not me specifically but rather what I might do to myself or others.

We have so much snow that I literally can’t see out the bottom of my living room window. (This is the only window that allows any sunlight to enter my apartment so it’s pretty vital it doesn’t get covered over. Oh yeah and its about 12 feet off the ground level, so that should tell you how much we really have.) Quitting smoking became a joke. We’re slated to be (without wind chill) at temperatures below zero (the coldest in years according to the weather people) on Tuesday. More snow is due to arrive (maybe another foot) on Wednesday. I’m still showering with my neighbors every fucking day. My bedroom is an ice box. Yada, yada, yada…

This morning was just the last straw.

This morning, our heat went out.

I just can’t fucking do this anymore. Sure the landlord was here in minutes and had a plumber out in no time. Sure my neighbors lent us a space heater. Sure I have fleece lined ski pants and wool socks.

But every cell of my being begs the question WHY? Why should I have to worry about this shit? Why should I have to own fleece lined ski pants? Why am I still living in this vast expanse of barrenness? It’s like a wasteland where wind blows and whips swirls of snow at nothing because there is nothing for it to hit but me. Its icy cold takes over.

And by that I’m referring to my own head.

I need to go. I need to go right now because if I can’t get out of this head place I am most certainly doomed. And no amount of journaling or talking to a therapist is going to change who I am or the things that irritate the hell out of me. Winter irritates the hell out of me. This fact hasn’t changed in 37.65 years and I don’t see it happening now just because everyone is trying to tell me to stay positive and that spring is around the corner.

Fuck that. I can’t do this anymore.

If Nothing Else It Sure Is an Interesting Journey

So far, according to my account on querytracker.net, I’ve sent out 19 queries. Not a lot that’s true but my goal is to research and submit my pitch to at least 6 new agents a week. Since I started getting back into the swing of this whole thing again about three weeks ago I’ve almost kept that promise to myself; I think my number is somewhere around fourteen. Not bad but still not good enough.

In the world of publishing there are some truths that, no matter how many blogs or twitter feeds I’ve read, seem to hold true.

1. Agents really don’t like when you spell their name wrong. (Luckily I’ve never done this and its likely because I hate when my name gets misspelled -- two N’s, seriously, how hard is that?)
2. For every 100 queries sent (very approximately), one will want to publish you.
3. Agencies have all kinds of creative ways to tell an author to go pound sand.

Yesterday I received my fourth different type of communication from an agent. So far, I have received rejections in the form of a teeny slip of paper attached to my own original query, a handwritten note scrawled at the top of my original query, an email that had been sent months after my snail mail query (then it was printed out with a quick handwritten note and sent back in my SASE), and a postcard (the one pictured above, I just changed the info to protect the innocent but the wording is as I received it).

Not to mention all the eRejections but they aren’t as creative.

Oh yeah, but there was that one…that one agent so far who saw the same potential in my work that I see. The agency that requested the first two chapters. I don’t know if that will be my agent or agency, I probably won’t hear from them for another two months either way, but just the request alone leads me to believe I must be doing something right.

There is a lot of work involved in querying and so far I’ve only done about a quarter of what I will likely need to do. In my quest to find the perfect agent I’m starting small -- researching and submitting to those who require nothing more than the query letter in email. Next will be those who take a simple query via snail mail. After that I will need to start paying a little more for postage as the requests differ wildly from agent to agent.

Some want as much as a query, 10-20 page synopsis and the first three chapters. And that’s just to get a foot in the door! It isn’t that I don’t want to do it, in fact if the agent above who requested two chapters via email asks me to ship out my completed manuscript where do you think I’ll be within twenty minutes?

Well, barring weather of course.

Speaking of the weather, Boston is doing a pretty good job of reminding me of one of the reasons why I so desperately want to get out of here this year. Two storms of eighteen inches of snow in as many weeks, stuck in yesterday, and now another potential whopper on Friday. Yes, I am counting down the minutes until we leave for the Valley of the Sun!

The funny thing though is that I keep thinking, as long as I’m trapped inside I might as well make good use of that time. So this is the time I’m spending getting to know agencies and formatting my queries. Next month, however, I made myself a promise that no matter where I was in the query process for Ripple the Twine, I’d get back to my second manuscript re-writes.

Bet you all thought I forgot about my second NaNo win didn’t you? Yeah, well, there were days I really wanted to forget it, so I can appreciate that. But overall I think the bones are there for a really funny and well written story. It’s just that I need to completely re-write it to get there.

Well maybe not all of it, I might even keep the attack of the killer zombies scene but she definitely can’t be a blogger anymore and the whole love triangle thing needs to happen with a completely different guy. Oh and I really need to beef up her mother’s character but she can’t be the evil one, I need to make that a random co-worker. Who I will have to write in now. But she is still going to suffer from post traumatic stress amnesia. It’s kind of integral to the entire plot.

The plot that formed in my head the last week of November but never quite made it to the page.

About three weeks into NaNo I had the most brilliant idea for how I could give her a happy ending even though she had been hit by a bus, divorced from her high school sweetheart and sexually harassed online. Of course half of that had to change but keeping with the majority of her back story, etc. I couldn’t wait to write it!

In February.

After I left her in a cold dark place to ruminate over all her missteps for a while.

And by ‘her’ I of course mean me.

And by ‘missteps’ I of course mean all those plot bunnies.

If nothing else, this writing thing sure is a wild ride full of millions of dull and pathetic moments of boredom and repetition…and I am loving every single minute of it.