The Great Boston Experiment

It’s amazing what we’ll do for that steady paycheck, for the comfort and security it provides.

Quite a lot of thought went into this Great Boston Experiment: everything that would happen, everything that could happen and all the regrets we might have. It certainly wasn’t easy abandoning a career tract I spent five years riding, taking a gamble to possibly lose it all, not to mention leaving behind family, friends and familiar surroundings. If there was one single turning point in the multi-month push toward this endeavor – one moment where it went from wishful thinking about something that I considered but ultimately wouldn’t do (which I would probably regret later in life) and turned into something I actively pursued as a goal — it came when my friend Kevin Purdy g-chatted two words to me:

Wage Slave.

Kevin, who is also a freelance journalist, and I were chatting at the end of May about the chances of a freelance writing gig coming to fruition in Boston; and I was concerned about what would happen if the money wasn’t there, and Sarah and I would have to seriously cut back on expenses. That’s when Kevin wrote the sentence that changed my life: “I’d imagine Sarah’s going to like having a committed, striving husband rather than a disenchanted wage slave, she’ll weight it against the material costs.”

At that moment, it hit me. I was only at my Naples Daily News job for the steady paycheck. That I was enslaved to that steady paycheck and the comfort it provided; and was putting up with a job that made me miserable, and brought that misery home to my family every night, keeping me from being the husband and father I should have been. It was easy to think that without a secure financial situation the world would come screeching to a halt; that life would fall out from under my family; that we would suffer ill repute because the money wasn’t there. Once I realized that no matter what we would remain together — money or no money — that the world would keep turning even if I didn’t have a job, the Great Boston Experiment went from impossibility to certain reality.

We all need to make money; whether you’re a rich investment banker, a trust-fund baby living off generational billions or taking welfare from the taxpayers, money is the one thing we all need in this modern society. Everyone’s a money-maker, but not everyone is a wage slave. Some 200-300 years ago, people needed the same things we need today, and they worked to get them. Whether they were farmers, shoemakers or traders, they all worked to survive, selling food, shoes or wares to get by. They weren’t necessarily in love with their jobs, but the jobs were important to their survival.

What did Tyler Durden say in Fight Club? “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.” The wage slave is a modern invention, the result of that steady paycheck, forcing working stiffs to endure the unendurable for mere comfort … not greatness, not the promise of something better, just comfort. The farmer, the shoemaker, the trader? How much of their time do you think was spent in meaningless meetings talking about the state of the company? Were they concerned about performance reviews, making sure they were at their desk at 9 a.m. to avoid an angry boss, going through endless procedures and tasks to do simple things like be present for the birth of their child? No, they were concerned with making money, with providing for their families, with surviving. They might not have loved their jobs, but at least they were striving for something. Wage slaves don’t strive for anything; they simply put up with a bunch of crap to maintain what they have.

To struggle and strive is to feel alive; the steady paycheck takes that all away.

For those on that steady paycheck, it can seem like the world will end if the paycheck ever goes away, so we can put up with almost anything. Be at your desk at 9 a.m. and not a second later; don’t take longer than an hour lunch or don’t leave earlier than 5 p.m., even if you have nothing to do and are simply surfing the Web to pass the time; read this company newsletter; make sure your desk is neat; make sure you fill out this form and that form in the proper way, even if you’re sure it gets thrown out or ignored the second you write it; CC all your bosses on e-mails; make sure you are properly dressed; make sure you’re at this long, boring meeting, even if it does take away from the work you’re supposed to be doing. For me, all the mindless minutia of the NDN corporation only took up – at most — 10 percent of the workweek, so it was easy to deal with. What I couldn’t stand, what was the breaking point for me, was how the corporate culture led to a decrease in production quality. They needed stories to fill the paper, and as they cut back on the number of reporters, that meant an increase in the quantity of production from the remaining reporters. For me, that meant hurrying out stories that weren’t quite ready to run and weren’t up to my standards. Soon, my standards dropped, and I became worse as a reporter. Not long after, I became a wage slave creating just enough quantity not to be bothered by a boss, and stories that had just enough quality that they would meet the minimum. When all you’re working for is the minimum, something has to change.

It’s amazing the number of carrots wage slaves have dangled in front of them to keep going. Here’s your steady paycheck, your health insurance, your Christmas bonus, your vacation leave, your sick days, the company holiday party, the cake celebrating some unknown co-worker’s birthday. I tell you, each piece of delicious cake I swallowed, the more I felt I was losing my soul to a corporation that thought it could placate its workers with frosting and flour. It’s amazing, too, as wage slaves how we’ll put up with reductions in these carrots just to keep them. There’ll be no pay raises this year; insurance costs are high and the company’s revenue is down, so you’ll have to pay double your insurance premiums; your Christmas bonus is now a $25 gift card to the mall; the company holiday party will be a potluck; there’ll only be one birthday cake each month, celebrating everybody’s birthdays. Even as the comfort zone collapses upon us, we cling to it like a child cuddling a security blanket.

I love to write, and I love being a reporter. I do them both on my free time happily and with all the greatness I can muster. I worked almost four years as a reporter for two different companies without ever thinking about the money or the benefits, or how I should be earning more or less. Once I got married and after Maggie was born, I needed to be a provider; and I would much rather have spent my time at home than in the office (which, by the way, had cubicles that all looked exactly alike with the same shade of gray). It was horrendous how once time and money became a part of my professional life, my passion for writing was corrupted.

That’s the difference between wage slaves and moneymakers: passion. Many workers thrive in a corporate-structured environment, keeping their passion for their jobs while dealing with all the extras, which may or may not bother them. Some are that passionate about what they do. Others are simply passionate about making money, whether it is by the handfuls or just enough to pay for a child’s dental braces. Those that see work and the hourly/salary wage as a means to an end and can tolerate it in that capacity are truly fortunate.

I was never passionate about money; I came from an upper middle class family and was never gravely concerned about money.  What I am passionate about are my family and my writing. I was passionate enough about my family to try and provide in a time-wasting, soul-crushing environment that diminished (and nearly erased) my passion for writing. An environment that put me in a foul mood that I brought home to my family, and thus diminished my passion for everything. Moving to Boston and striving for myself and my family was a saving grace.

The Great Boston Experiment combines, revives and elevates my passions. With the help of my lovely wife, I’ve created an environment where my need to write high quality articles is directly related to my need to provide for my family (rather than being indirectly related through my need to show up, properly dressed, at my corporate job every day). The Great Boston Experiment also created an environment where I get to spend as much time as I want with my wife and daughter without ever having to worry about an office timeclock. Even if I have to get a part-time or full-time non-journalism job to pay the expenses that writing doesn’t cover, at least then I’ll know I’m working to keep my passions burning.

Being a wage slave is no way to go through life. You can barely call it a life.