The day job narrative. What would your manuscript look like?
exploring the constraints of working roles and their potential to reshape identity
I’ve had a lot of jobs. From my first foray into the working world as a bagger at a grocery store to a short stint selling fine jewelry or bussing tables early mornings at a breakfast diner, the writer in me has always been collecting. I’ve worked at a large corporate firm and a small nonprofit. And all these decades later, I am a business owner, writer, and academic program manager.
As you can probably deduce, I am well beyond the 21+ category above. Part of this is because long before it was the only option, I was a gig worker. I often had 2 or 3 positions at once and participated in more orientations than I’d like to admit. Each was a study of self and the world.
I remember sitting in rooms participating in this phenomenon known as "orientation.” I love this word. The dictionary definition states that it is about determining the relative position of someone or something. At work, it’s about a person’s position within a system.
We orient to new environments, which is both exhilarating and anxiety-producing. And each time, at least for established industries—even the arts—a specific role seems attached to a desired persona.
If you’re in sales, you will almost always benefit from displaying charisma and enthusiasm. If you are an expert, you are expected to share a lot about a single topic and carry a certain weight to your words. If you are a teacher, you are tasked with knowledge sharing in a way that is equal parts nurturing and disciplinarian.
If you’re an artist or writer, you are often expected to cultivate a captivating persona to sell your work. Persona can stem from our identity as well as the identity we attach to the work we choose to share, but it’s often only a small window into the artist’s true self.
I grew up thinking adopting an artistic persona meant owning pet alligators or lobsters, having drinking problems, engaging in mysterious downward glances often, being surrounded by inpenetrable cliques, and wearing either the latest fashion labels or only thrift-bought clothing. Seeing as how I am a sweatpants and sneakers kind of person, this version of a persona felt like the opposite of authenticity.
Creating a persona for work, even artistic work, is often something that happens without us even realizing. It’s ego doing ego’s thing.
It’s survival, connectivity, and familiarity. And it often earns us a sense of belonging or safety in a space where we spend many of our most alert waking hours. But I believe it’s also necessary to keep a safe distance from that persona, so we can always have enough wiggle room to adjust and realign. Or reorient.
For most of my working life, finding identity in a day job was a losing game, and as much as I’d probably have enough pension to retire in ten years if I’d stayed at one place, I wouldn’t give up the wild experiences I’ve had.
I liked being an outsider at jobs I disliked because I never got too attached to the wrong situation, and it taught me more about myself and others than comfort ever could. I learned that belonging in a space that is not right will never feel rewarding, no matter how hard we try to make it work. So throughout my teens and twenties, even in my early thirties, I treated each role as a case study, and I’m glad I did. And now that I’m an artist, I’m satisfied to align my persona with whatever work is at hand.
Paths are made by walking. —Kafka
Our ultimate career or vocation can be rewarding. The day jobs and gigs and projects we do to fulfill expectations or survive offer us something else: clear and poignant insight into what we don’t want, do want, never want, and why.
There is so much a lackluster job, in particular, can teach us that can’t be learned second-hand, through simulation or the classroom.
I’m thinking of putting together a class on how to write about day jobs before my book is released. I think it could apply to any genre, because I think there are a lot of interesting entry points for this material. It’s worth meditating about how, across experiences, our identity shifts, even if slightly, from role to role. The way people see us changes, and this can often change the way we see ourselves. When we realize this, however, we can see the ego for just what it is: an actor in need of a role.
Where have we been most aligned with our working persona? Where have we felt unable to abide? These questions get to our essence.
Writing prompt: What did the role, the way you dressed, the shift, the breaks, the expectations, and the lighting do to your sense of comfort or belonging, and how did your leader get it right or fail miserably?
This is a fun exercise, and one I’m finding adapts well to fiction. I hope you’ll try it. Disclaimer: It’s a lot easier to dissect roles and work that reside in your past.
If you’ve ever written about day jobs or plan to, tell me about it. If you’d like to read one of mine, go here.
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: Because words are the original magic. They don’t need batteries, they don’t crash (unless hurled at a wall), and they’ve been debugging humanity for thousands of years.
: Because writing, when I get that perfect line, that perfect verse, is as close as I’ll ever get to touching another plane. Another existence. Something beyond me. And reading is the same way. We are human. Until we write.
Judi Sullivan (artist and healer): For me, it is to better express/ clarify/sometimes discover myself at a greater depth while also allowing the sharing of whatever comes through with others, if writing to loved ones or for a higher, more public purpose.
Why do you write?
Quick plug: check out the most endearing video review from my talented narrator for Chaos Magic. She does not blow smoke, and I’m heartened. My collection of essays mentioned above, AT WORK, will be available in 2027.
Hello Jen, What a rich and self-aware reflection. Truly a teaching story.
I love how clearly you name what so many of us do unconsciously—crafting a persona just to navigate the terrain. It’s true: sometimes it’s about survival, sometimes strategy, sometimes a strange kind of artistry. And your reminder to leave wiggle room—to realign or reorient—is so wise.
That line about not getting too attached to the wrong situation struck me. I’ve felt that too—that outsider vantage point can sharpen our insight more than years of comfort ever could. Thank you for this. It’s a powerful reframe for how we carry ourselves inside the work we do, and who we are—behind the roles.
Thank you for being in this community with us. "Paths are made for walking." Yes.
This is a great meditation on work. I've cycled through jobs, and for years this carried a strange, opaque shame. Why couldn't I find the thing? My purpose! My perfect spot to excel! Although many successes came and went, the wiggling feeling that I was doing it all wrong persisted. Writing puts space between the feeling and the experience. A focus on that space, rather than the scope of "job as life," eases the tension. Meaning is often found, for me, in the space between, not in the thing itself. Finally, someone (it was my therapist) appointed me the title "creative seeker," and that felt a little more snug and secure. Anyway... I'm going to give this prompt a go. And it brought to mind A&P by John Updike — a masterful example of finding mystery, wonder, and growth in the mundane moments of the job.