Writing about work

Well, my boss and colleague, Barney, are out of sight for the moment, so I'm stealing a break to write a little.

I keep a selection of my own books in the office that include Penelope Fitzgerald's Innocence, The Little Book of Famous Insults, The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, The Best American Short Stories 2000 and a recent addition titled Our Working Lives, an anthology of short stories about work.

The introduction of this book features a paragraph on what Stuart Dybek, a favorite writer of mine, says about work:

"We write too much about love and sex," Stuart Dybek once said after his students discussed a story which took place mostly on a construction site. "We should write more stories like this, about work." The construction site was not only planks, concrete and power tools - it was a web of interactions among workers, bosses, and customers, all with their own philosophies, temperaments, and frustrations. Such a workplace, it turned out, was rich in everything that made a good story.

Boy, the things I could write about. I have no wish to elaborate in this weblog the things that go on at my office, but maybe one day I'll put to paper the stories that were inspired by what I've seen and heard at work.

In the mean time, I better get back to doing what I'm paid to do - today, I'm listening to children's songs and editing the activity books that go along with the CDs. It's a good thing the children who will one day use these books will not know about all the arguing and politiking and fiddling that went into the production of these materials. All they will see is a flying unicorn called Nico!

Posted by Monoceros at April 7, 2003 6:09 PM