Jul
Best/Worst
All jobs, no matter what they are, have bests and worsts.
Take a chocolate shop for instance. If you worked there, you could eat chocolate all day long (that would be a best). Yet, if you did, you’d run the risk of a) wearing what you eat and/or b) becoming a great big giant zit (a correlation I made in high school).
Then there’s being a fitness instructor. If you had this career, there’d be no reason to be out of shape (another best). Ever. Yet, everyone would expect you to be in shape (a worst).
And so the story goes. One job after the other.
Being a mystery writer is no exception. Let me offer a few exhibits in the “best” category:
1) You can stay in your jammies all day if you want. 
2) If you come across a personality you don’t like, you can poison (or strangle) them and cover your tracks.
3) You have an excuse to read (because everyone knows that reading translates to better writing).
4) You get to travel for book events and meet lots of amazing people.
As for the “worst” column…
1) I tend to snack on junk food (candy corn) during the final few weeks of a deadline even though I know it’s bad.
2) Money is sporadic.
3) No matter how many wonderful reviews you get, the nasty one or two always hurts.
4) You’re very isolated during the writing process unless you go elsewhere to work (but, even then, it’s still really just you and your computer).
So how about you? What’s the best and worst parts of your job (bonus points to those of you who can refrain from telling us what you do for a living yet describe it so vividly via your bests/worsts that we can guess, anyway)?
~Elizabeth
July 22nd, 2010 at 6:42 am
Best:
1) I have a job. Many, many people do not so having one is number 1 on the best list right now.
2) I LOVE the people I work with so much. They’re funny and fun and we all work really well together.
3) I get great satisfaction from telling people what I do for a living and 99% of them have no idea what the job would entail or how to do it.
Worst:
1) The commute. It’s 45 minutes each way. Luckily, I am going against traffic in an area known for hideous commutes so it’s only half bad, I guess.
2) Because of the commute I am out of the house longer hours than I’d like and that takes time away from my daughter.
3) When what I am working on doesn’t ‘work’ because I am the only one who can do it at my office and actually the only one in the whole multinational company of over 90,000 employees, I have no one who can help me. I’m on my own.
July 22nd, 2010 at 6:51 am
1-business casual and jeans on Friday…the rest of the company is professional dress.
2-I have monthly goals and production. I can say I’m done with something and for the month or day or week, I mostly am. I like meeting goals (Nerd…)
3-I have lots of day dream time while I process my work.
4-I have a supervisor I love. In my, ahem, years of working, I’ve only had two supervisors I hated. Believe me, it makes a huge difference.
Worst?
1-Commute with no CD player in the little car I use.
2-When people want me to pull a rabbit out of the hat and work against rules, regulations and laws of nature in the name of customer service.
3-The corporate culture to NETWORK all the time. I write because I’m not a salesman. I like the isolation time. At the day job, I have to be ON 75% of the time.
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:13 am
Best
-My supervisor is great; he doesn’t micro-manage
-I love manipulating numbers into bullet points
-The people that I work with are nice
-Trying new restaurants during lunch
-Finishing a project ahead of time
Worst
-I’m shy so when they want to be visible, it’s not going to happen
-The 60 minute subway commute and the 5-minute walk to the new office versus 45 minute door-to-door at the old location
-The idea of transparency – everybody knows your business
-Networking – why?
-The idea of not having a job, but having a career when all I want is a job.
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:36 am
Funny you mention a chocolate shop. One of the perks of a previous job was we worked in food manufacturing facilities. Warm Oreos are the best
Fresh, warm Little De bbie snack cakes are also really good.
Downside of that job was you saw how food was made. Sausage isn’t nearly as bad as you would think and smells really good as they are packing it. Coffee on the other hand … I still can’t stand the smell of it. And the contact sugar highs in the Kool Aid plant were interesting.
Current job:
Best
- many of the people are smart and we’ve worked together so long we can solve/invite things really quickly
- get to try some really cool technology even if we don’t use it
- a couple of times in the last 10 years came up with industry changing ideas
Worst
- commute (seeing a pattern here …)
- growing pains mean/meant long hours and long weekends
- sometimes so isolated on a project I don’t ‘work’ with anyone else for days at a time.
- explaining I’m not a spammer
July 22nd, 2010 at 10:01 am
These are cool! Aimee, I’m curious. What do you do?
Lynn…I know what you do.
Dru…I’d LOVE trying all the new restaurants at lunch time. One of these days (probably Fall), I’m gonna have to come down and meet you for lunch!!
Chris, I’m glad you’re not a spammer!
July 22nd, 2010 at 11:38 am
Let me know and we definitely can do lunch.
July 22nd, 2010 at 9:14 pm
I’m a statistician. Not a super rare job if you work in professional sports, sports journalism or insurance but at a defense contractor, it sure is.
People have very immutable ideas about math and numbers and my job is to tell them that numbers can mean anything they want them to mean.
July 22nd, 2010 at 11:14 pm
Very cool, Aimee. It must be a little daunting to have that many people needing you, though…yes?
July 23rd, 2010 at 9:17 am
Candy corn?
Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just keep a bottle of corn syrup by the computer?
July 23rd, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Perhaps, Keith. But then I couldn’t bite each color–white, orange, yellow–in order. And then I’d actually have to WRITE! Sheesh!
July 23rd, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Found you from Sharon’s blog and I loved this post about our jobs! Even with the list of worsts with your job, I’d still take it – I would love to be full time writer!
my job bests:
using maps almost everyday
going to the library to do research
pretty much getting to make my own schedule
my job worsts:
occasional stay up all night kind of deadlines
staying motivated when I don’t have deadlines
(I am a research analyst at a university in geography, specifically geographic information systems)
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Okay, picturing Laura sipping from a bottle of corn syrup through a straw now and massively grossed out.
July 24th, 2010 at 12:54 pm
And Margo, I’m glad you found us. We have a fun group of folks who frequent this blog. So come back, okay?