Showing posts with label quit job. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quit job. Show all posts

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Bukowski Worked at the Post Office

"There will always be something to ruin our lives- it all depends on what or which finds us first. We are always ripe and ready to be taken."          -Charles Bukowski

The writer Charles Bukowski worked at the post office as a letter filing clerk for more than a decade. Before that, he worked in a pickle factory. In 1969 Bukowski accepted an offer from Black Sparrow Press publisher John Martin and quit his post office job to dedicate himself to full-time writing. He was then 49 years old. As he explained in a letter at the time, "I have one of two choices – stay in the post office and go crazy ... or stay out here and play at writer and starve. I have decided to starve."

I remember reading his book Factotum and thinking, this guy is a master at describing the banality, inanity, and desperation found in so many modern workplaces.

He also said "If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose."