A Mini-Course in Work Stories
Short fiction for summer--or anytime
Time for a mini-course of sorts.
Work—employment—paid labour—is something most of us do for many hours and years of our lives. The salary buys us a roof (with any luck), food, clothing. Or warmth, security, nourishment. Beyond, it might buy us some books, music. Shoes we don’t need but love.
In workplaces we learn about life—ours and others’. We learn about relationships and communication. We learn what others value. Or don’t. We experience kindness and respect. Or the nuances and challenges of human cruelty. Workplaces can be Tolstoy’s words about unhappy families: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” There appear to be commonalities in well-managed workplaces, but the misery that can come of dysfunction in unhappy workplaces can be the birthing place of interesting fiction.
In the next couple of months—over the summer—it’ll be interesting to explore this. In my short fiction collection, Learning to Live Indoors, I have two “work stories,” both fictional, but set in my knowledge of the hairdressing world, a world I lived in from mid-teens to late 20s (in the 80s—when hair was truly fun.) I’ll share these two stories; the collection is now out-of-print, and all rights have been returned to me, so this is easy to do.
You may want to share links to published “work” stories, too, as we go along, and I’ll open a workshop space here for any stories you write and want to share for feedback. Please be aware of copyright! Share only if you can. And as always, workshops are for paid subscribers.
To get started, let’s talk ideas. In the spate of recent Q&A we worked with here, one of the questions was about ideas for stories.
Many of us spend about one third of our lives at work; half if you count only waking hours! What a thought. Yet when we write we tend to think outside of the workplace. What does this mean?
Whenever I’m having to research day-to-day life in another era, I’m a bit stymied by how little info there is about exactly those real-life bits and pieces. Maybe the people who enjoy their work and jobs feel no need to write about it—they’re busy living and enjoying and going to the cabin for weekends.
Let’s leave room for this “why” in the comments, and move on to how you can interrogate your own experiences and come up with story material.
A full list of all jobs you’ve ever had
Let’s start here. List every one, with space between for extra scribbles. From baby-sitting to umping ball games. From stocking grocery shelves, to working an old-school telephone party-line (before he was a teenager, my deceased spouse did this for his mother while she needed time to cook dinner and other home-related tasks; the telephone switchboard was in their home. Imagine the urge to listen-in…!)
As you jot the list, if associated words come to you, jot them, too. Don’t wait. Images will start to come—people you worked with. Words said. Reprimands. Positives you’ve carried with you to other positions.
The smell of the oil pit behind the McDonalds… trekking out there in the dark to dump yet more… Let the bits and pieces come to you.
That miserable conversation with the home-owner at almost the close of the intense and full kitchen reno…
Next step…
List the tasks you had to do in these positions. What did you enjoy doing? What did you do your best to avoid? What was asked of you that you did not do? why? Or that you did do, but so reluctantly?
Who were your co-workers? Can you name or describe them? Did you spend time/socialize with them outside of the work-place? What was the nature of that? Do you still have a friend/contact from this experience? Did one or some feel like a nemesis? How did any of these relationships change? Anything particularly unexpected? What caused you to leave this job?
What was the nature of your lunch breaks and coffee times—what did the breaks look like? Did you bring or share lunch? Go to a nearby coffee shop?
What were staff parties? Any fall-out?
What were the clients like—any who stand out in your mind now?
Describe the physicality of the workplace in terms of your senses. What assailed your nose when you walked in for your shifts/days? Did anything about the place make you feel claustrophobic? frustrated? calm?
What time of day did you work? or night? Did you walk, drive, or take transit? What did you do in that commuter time?
How did your time in this place change through the months and/or years there?
What further questions/thoughts occur to you…? Please share in the comments, so we can continue to build these ideas.
Stories
When you find yourself reminiscing about a workplace of the past, what stories do you find yourself recounting? Why?
Do you wish something that happened had happened differently? Can you imagine, if it had, what it might be?
How were the lives of any of your co-workers changed as a result of that workplace? Was your life, in any unexpected way?
How did your work-life affect anyone you lived with at that time—family, room-mates, friends?
What epiphanies were provoked by a job or workplace that occurred after the fact?
How did leaving a job change you? What was your most dramatic leave-taking? the most low-key? Have you ever just walked out? Did you leave anything behind? Did you return for it? Decide not to?
Did you ever leave a position without having secured another?
What memories do you have of interviews (that did or did not result in gaining a particular job)?
What was personal growth that came about as the result of something related to your work?
What is an event that happened that was not funny then… but over time has become something quite worthy of a giggle?
Every workplace has a rhythm through the weeks, the months, the seasons, including holidays. The DAY has a rhythm. Does this affect your story? IS the rhythm the story?
on to Fiction —
You’re welcome to write memoir or an essay, yes, but my initial thought with this mini-course was to take the stuff of your life and change it up—re-envision as fiction.
So let it go. After the above mulling and scribbling, what are the “What ifs” that come? Go with the movement there. Things you wondered about; people who made you curious.
After working with your own employment, think about the experiences of family, relatives, and friends—even if you need to go to them for more details. In all our fiction, characters—main, secondary, tertiary—have jobs we’ve never done. This is a path to enrich your work with verisimilitude.
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Let’s brainstorm work-related words and phrases to kick this off:
Giving Notice
Walking paper
Interview
Probation/Promotion
Bonus
Handing in/passing along/submitting a resume
Full-time or Part-time
Trainee/apprentice/intern
Made redundant
Leave - parental; illnesss; grief; “personal”
Overtime - OT (so what is ‘Undertime’?)
Shift - graveyard; split; on-call; rotating; weekend; first/second/third
‘Eager beaver’ (who are the Characters in this place? the one who gets away with little; the boss’s 42 year old “kid;” the intern…)
Foot in the door/line on the CV
What other phrases come to mind—add in the “comments”
This will be enough to begin. Take notes, let it brew and stew, and in July I’ll post a work story with some observations about the process, and on we’ll go…
I look forward!
I have so many to choose from.
Sounds so interesting, but with summer grandparenting of four and rewriting I won’t have time for this in my life right now. However, I really like the idea of our own work as a starting place for creativity. You hold within you such a wealth of writing, Alison. So very much appreciated.