Tag Archives: career

April 21, 2011 · 5:21 pm

Daddy, Daddy, What Do You Do?

As you know I’ve been talking a lot recently about writing a kids book, so I came up with the idea to write about children asking about their Fathers careers, using a format similar to the “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?” classic children’s book.  I thought it might be inspirational for kids to read about the things fathers do to earn a living.  Let me know what you think. The concept would go something like this:

Page 1:  Daddy, Daddy, what do you do? (turn page)

Page 2:  Daddy is a…………. You can be a……………. too!

Page 3:  Daddy, Daddy, what do you do?   Etc.

I’m looking for a talented illustrator for this project… I think it could be a hit!

Daddy, Daddy, what do you do?

Daddy is an Astronaut.  I fly into space.  You can be an Astronaut too if you study hard and do well in school.

Daddy, Daddy, what do you do?

Daddy is a Firefighter.  I fight fires and help people who’s houses are burning or who are injured in an accident.  You can be a Firefighter too and save people’s lives.

Daddy, Daddy, what do you do?

Daddy is a Doctor.  I help people who are sick get better.  You can be a Doctor too and spend most of your time dealing with insurance company regulations and other government bullshit.  Then you’ll only have time to see your patients for about two minutes each visit.

Daddy, Daddy, what do you do?

Daddy is a Police Officer.  I help protect the public from people who want to do bad things, like drug dealers and rapists and murderers.  You can be a Police Officer too and get paid a shit salary even though you have to deal with crazy, armed, meth-soaked criminals and dirty crack-whores.

Daddy, Daddy, what do you do?

Daddy is a Politician.  I take people’s tax money and spend it on drugs and hookers.  When I am not doing that I try to pass legislation that fucks over the little people.  You can be a Politician too and make a difference by sucking the life out of your community.

Daddy, Daddy, what do you do?

Daddy is a Corporate Manager.  I sit in a cubicle all day and drink coffee and pretend to be productive.  You can be a Corporate Manager too if you just go to college.  Even if you party too much and smoke a lot of weed and your grades suck you can still get a high-level corporate job like your old man.  Any stupid-ass kid like you can get through college these days.  Then you just have to be able to kiss-ass a lot and sit through lots of meetings with other douchebags.

Daddy, Daddy, what do you do?

Daddy is a Line Worker.  I help assemble parts for my company and I do the same repetitive thing over and over thousands of times each day.  You can be a Line Worker too and have a hellish monotony of a life.  But you get to take lots of union breaks and sometimes you can even go to work falling down drunk. No one will care because the union has your back.

Daddy, Daddy, what do you?

Daddy is a Retail Store Manager.  I have to stock and sell merchandise and work all of the time, including the weekends.  I also have to manage a bunch of low-life employees that don’t show up to work and I have to deal with customers that are mostly just assholes.  You can be a Retail Store Manager too and get paid minimum wage if you just have no motivation to do anything better with your life.

Daddy, Daddy, what do you do?

Daddy is a Salesperson.  I travel around and try to sell widgets to companies that don’t really need them.  Mostly I just hand out free promotional crap to self-serving, prick customers that want nothing other than to beat me down on price.  You can be a Salesperson too and live in flea-bag hotels all the time and someday maybe even bring bed-bugs home.

Daddy, Daddy, what do you do?

Daddy is a Professional Athlete.  I play a game and they pay me more money than you’ll ever see in your crap life.  Because I have so much money I can have crazy, random sex with women other than your Mom and get lots of DUI’s and no one really cares.  You can be a Professional Athlete too, just start shooting steroids into your ass right away.

Daddy, Daddy, what do you do?

Daddy is a Realtor.  That means people pay me to help them sell their house for much less than they paid for it. Then they have to go live in a homeless shelter.  You can be a Realtor too and then you will have to go live in a homeless shelter because the economy and the housing market has been in the shit-can for almost ten years and it isn’t coming back anytime soon.

Daddy, Daddy, what do you do?

Daddy is a Writer.  I write books.  A couple of my books were published a few years back but immediately ended up in the remainder sale at Barnes & Noble at 90% off.  Mostly Daddy just writes books that no one wants to publish or read.  You can be a Writer too if you go to college and get a worthless degree in literature.  Then you can also be a Bartender and serve drinks all night in a smoke-filled bar to alcoholics.  If you’re lucky you might even be able to afford to pay your rent.

Daddy, Daddy, what do you do?

Daddy is an Accountant.  I help people pay their taxes.  I also help people hide their money from the IRS because the U.S. tax system is so incredibly fucked up.   You can be an Accountant too and mind-numbingly type on an adding machine all day and help people with audits until you want to kill yourself from sheer boredom.

Daddy, Daddy, what do you do?

Daddy is an Attorney.  I specialize in personal injury law. Sometimes people call me an Ambulance Chaser.  That’s why I have a big picture of my face on the back of the phone book, and all those ads on the TV during the day, when all the injured people are at home waiting for their disability checks. You can be an Attorney too, you just have to go to any law school, even if it’s one in Nicaragua.

Daddy, Daddy, what do you do?

Daddy is unemployed because the corporation I worked for over the last 30 years laid me off and threw me out in the street two years ago.  That’s why Daddy drinks too much and sits home watching internet-porn while Mommy has to work at Wal-Mart in the middle of the night.

See, there’s lot of exciting things you can do to earn a living when you grow up.  Then you can retire and live in a nursing home.

THE END

Want to Read the Mommy version?  Click here!

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April 5, 2011 · 1:54 pm

The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse

Do you remember the tale “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse?” Of course you do, it’s a classic Aesop’s fable (often called The City Mouse and the Country Mouse) that has been recounted in various reincarnations in a multitude of children’s books and stories over many centuries. As the story is told, the Town Mouse, after being disappointed with a meager meal of a few corn kernels and dried blueberries at the Country Mouse’s home invites his rural cousin to his home in the city to show him “the rich feasts of city life.” The Country Mouse agrees to visit his urban cousin but promptly leaves after their exquisite meal of bread and cheese and fruit and grains is repeatedly interrupted by prowling dogs (or cats).

The motto? A modest life of peace and quiet is better than a richly one with danger and strife.

I have thought about this story often recently. I wonder if I am a Town Mouse or a Country Mouse. On one hand, sure, I have chosen to live in the country with all the benefits of peace and solitude that it provides. On the other hand, although we as a family try to be responsible with our income, I by no means can claim to have subscribed to a complete life of modesty. On one hand I feel right at home, ecstatic even as if it is my proper place, working around my property dressed in a barn jacket and a pair of mud boots. On the other hand, I feel equally at home, dressed to a tee and sitting in a wine bar, consuming $10.00 glasses of wine and enjoying the company of friends. On one hand, I enjoy having adequate time to myself, peace and solitude and time to think and ponder and write and play my guitar. It would be fair to say I crave it even, thrive on it. Likewise, on the other hand I understand that I need, for sanity’s sake, interactions with friends and family and community. I guess it’s like a scale that I must continually add and remove weights to and from each weighing pan, to be sure that my life stays in the appropriate balance, a balance that varies from time to time, but which must stay relatively stable.

Where I find myself leaning towards the life of the Country Mouse, however, is in preferring an existence of solitude. I’ll be honest in saying that, if the choice were offered to me, most of the time I’d choose the loner life as opposed to constantly being in the presence of other people. It’s a strange dynamic because I have the unique ability to portray myself as someone who is somewhat sociable and confident and successful and in many ways I crave that stature as well. It’s not a complete ruse, I am all those things at some level, but some days, if I could just crawl into a hole and do my own thing, hand over all the responsibilities to someone else and live a “modest life of peace and quiet” I’d take that option in a heartbeat. I suspect that personality trait is what drives me to write, to be able to sit at a computer, with my thoughts and words, without the distractions of other people’s opinions, without the stresses from the problems that our business is facing, without the worries about bills and mortgages and needing a new car and the multitude of other issues we all face daily.

I am home today writing because my kids are on Spring Break and I chose to take some time off this week to be home with them. As they no longer require my constant attention, I sit here and compose this post, and it makes me crave even more the lifestyle of the Country Mouse. It makes me understand how much I prefer to be working at home, tapping on my keyboard, with a cup of hot coffee by my side and a classical music radio station playing faintly in the background, rather than toiling away in a business with phones ringing and e-mails beeping. It makes realize how much I prefer working by myself, passionately creating something that I find meaningful, rather than managing and supervising and delegating to others for the sole purpose of bringing in a paycheck. Like many of my readers, I would desperately like to find a way to nurture this lifestyle, to make a living writing and working from home. I don’t think this is in the cards for me at this point in my life but I do hope I am slowly planting the seeds that will grow my writing skills to a level, which down the road at some point, is more than just a hobby, more than just a blog, more than just a silly dream.

The Aesop Brothers never discussed the careers of the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse in their classic fable about living a meager yet meaningful life versus living a life of luxury and indulgence. Their stories had a way of teaching simple yet profound life lessons, in brief and not overly analytical compositions. If I were to venture a guess though, I suspect the Town Mouse was an investment banker or a real estate mogul or some other such business person, sitting in a corner office twelve hours a day, making a six figure salary that he could blow on cheese and bread and fruit and grains, but who never really found happiness and satisfaction in his career and his lifestyle.

The Country Mouse, on the other hand… most likely a starving author.

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