I Was Not Meant to Be Here

I let out a loud sigh as I turned the key in my ignition to off. I was here. Just moments ago I was pondering the character concepts of a new story I need to jot down before I forget it, feeling that adrenaline rush of creative discovery. But now I am here. I have yet to take one step out of my car and I am already emotionally drained for the day. I move out of my car and slowly plod across the parking lot towards the place that drains my soul of joy in this world. Why am I here? I was not meant to be here. So before you tell me to quit and get another job, I have to explain that I am a creator. This is my term for all people who are creative to any degree and style; writers, painters, photographers, and the holiest of the holies—musicians. This term applies to how good, or not so good, one is at their favorite form of expression.

To start, I am really good at what I do professionally. I approach it unconventionally, yet I get amazing results. I know I am not the only creator in the corporate world. Some of us know early on what their gift is and go that direction from an early age. I belong to the pack of late bloomers who needed a little more maturing before I was able to take my leap into the creative world. There is one like me at every office in every city around the world. We are not allowed at the office "lunch table" because we are not like the rest. We do not speak the office language, we hardly dress the office code. We are the creators, acting like business professionals while trudging through a morass of low brow humor and cheesy motivational sayings to increase output. Let the anti-anxiety pills fall from the heavens. But I am very good at what I do. I care about the quality of my work and how well my place of business does in the world. My place of work does provide a living for many and that is a good thing. But just not for me.

I want to say that business professionals are not bad people. They know what they want and get the rush from closing a deal. I get that. I have felt that on occasion as well and it is pretty nice. Where we come to a head is that creators want to discuss the intricacies of "why;" why is music so amazing, why did Van Gogh use that style of painting strokes, why does the smell of the forest after a rain smell so good. The "why" is the reason I need to move on in this life from one place to another to use the multitude of my senses to absorb the world around me. To feel and be moved. I refuse to believe that I am here to work, pay bills, and die. With a few token reprieves like French Pastries, high-end tequila, and Disney World. There is more to the life of a creator than this.

Onto business etiquette. Business professionals usually talk about business. All. The. Time. That is their life. I have gone to several business "socials" where we are supposed to relax outside of the office with other managers, have a drink or two, and mingle. Not one ever lasted five minutes before turning into an event about bookings and dollar signs. I am a fairly chatty person, but I would scarcely utter a word at such affairs because my brain can't handle it. I want to scream, rip the remaining color from my graying hair. At the very least, can we discuss some inappropriate television for some cheap laughs and respect the fact that we are on a beach and not in the office. Nothing in the world, apart from Easter Mass at the Vatican, is more PC than an intra-office outing while human resources is present.

We are often misjudged by our intellect because we don't have the full aptitude for business in our DNA. Sorry I can't tell you the name of the CEO at Schmitts and Bits but you couldn't name the three branches of American Government without a Google search, so don't judge. If not for the pack mentality of business professionals, creators would be flinging out snarky replies and correcting horribly inaccurate facts by the truck load. Seriously, all adults need to get the message in meme form that any fact you read in a meme on Facebook or Twitter is probably false, no matter how legitimate it looks. Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln were not present for the crossing of the Delaware. Britney Spears did not tell a young Steve Jobs to keep up with math to later find Apple. The office is not a place where you want to float that information out to so your colleagues and subordinates can ridicule you later over.

Which brings my next point on the office atmosphere. The politics. creators want to show up, do work, leave. No drama. No extra meetings. Business professionals love the politics like a kid loves sugar; once they get that first "high," its Mt Dew and Pixie Stix for life. The secrets, lies, and backstabbing that happens feel like a game to ensure one's existence. The creator will always take the brunt because we don't care. We don't want to play. Why do you keep shaming me to buy your kid's Organization Crap to help pay for his trip to Space Camp? You make three times as much as me and to be honest, your kid can't spell Space Camp. In the off hand chance he does attend, you will go on vacation to the South of France somewhere for two weeks while I have to handle your load. Then you will come back and tell me I need to relax. This, of course, is how some opioid addictions begin.

A lot of creators found their way into the professional world through a variety of means. They were told they could use their creativity for new product lines for ergonomics or new toys. Some were recruited for marketing and sales. I went in because I just needed money and was unsure what I wanted to do in life. We were all told to be creative. So we were. Just not business creative. I understand this happens a lot to engineers. Creators and business professionals look at what success in such contrasting ways. Creators call success the completion of a book, story, painting, whatever, and enjoy how it touches other people. Business professionals call success making a huge profit on said completed item by the creator, yet they tell the creator the best way to create. We all love getting paid. That is not the drive for us. Although it does help in the dating scene if your answer does not include the phrase "in between jobs."

At the end of the day. We are different. No one is better than the other, but one is much easier to make fun of. Because we are a strange lot and we don't need Instagram to prove it. I have moved on from my self-sentence life of office oppression and started my side hustles to pay the bills until I start getting paid for what I love to do, creative writing. But this is for all the other creators out there who doodle on note pads in conferences, spend your lunch hour writing that novel, or just flat out pretending to work because you are done. Figure it out. I'm sure there's a twelve step program out there for people like us that some writer is too lazy to start. But I'm sure a business professional has already done it and I am willing to part with my money for... just as long as prescriptions are written and they take my insurance.