profiling lives

When I started work this summer on the two eBooks I wrote for Publishing 101's Careers series, I had to interview and profile a number of different people in each of the two careers I chose.  I had a routine all worked out for this, most of which consisted of a nervous stomach and semi-suicidal thoughts for the whole day before the interview, every time. Once I got on the phone, though, I was surprised by the experience.

First, I calmed down and relaxed by about five minutes into the conversation. Every time. [Except maybe for the first time. Which I wrote about here.] You'd think that would make things easier on subsequent attempts, but alas.

And second, I sort of fell in love.

Every time.

You can hear it in the recordings I made of each interview. I'm like a fourteen year old goo-gooing into the phone while writing a boy's name over and over on my Pee Chee folder.

The aim of the career eBooks series is to help people research, choose and move toward a profession, and the profiles are mainly intended to give a well-rounded sense of the job. But careers often define us. While I interviewed these people, I wasn’t just learning what it’s like to be an accountant or a glazier [that’s a glass-worker, someone who installs windows]. I was being given the distilled story of a person’s life. Every time. When you’re given so much of someone’s life, how can you not fall in love a little?

With the longtime journeyman glazier musing on the days before safety regulations: "Used to be a lot of the old timers were missing a finger or something. It’s so long ago that I don’t even think twice about it now, but when I first got into the trade, the first time I was holding a twelve foot long piece of glass, well, I was kind of a little nervous."

With the young glazier who described her trip to Wisconsin to represent her union during the fight for collective bargaining rights last year: “I have goose bumps right now, telling you this. I used to joke that I should have been born in an earlier time — to experience the sixties, with all the war going on, the protests — I always felt that was such a big moment in our recent history. Now I realize I do belong here.”

With the apprentice accountant who didn't like to see tax season come to an end: “You’ve just had four months where you’re crazy, coming into the office all day, every day and working your butt off to get it done. And then the day after, you walk into the office, and there’s nothing to do. That’s what I hate the most. The day after tax season.”

With the CPA who, as a child, probably could have seen his career choice coming a mile away: "I have a picture of me when I was six years old, and I’ve got a pocket protector with pencils in it."

 My subjects were ambitious entrepreneurs or starstruck dreamers or hitchhiking hippies. They were confident and expansive or cautious and abrupt or merry and nostalgic or cocky and naive. I fell in love with them all. I was gathering details for a book on what it is to be an accountant or what it is to be a glazier, but it surprised me how easily it turned into what it is to be human.

*

By the way, if you want to, you can check out my eBooks here:

Glaziers: Stories From People Who've Done It
Accountants: Stories From People Who've Done It

Or on the eBooks page on my website here.

a circus walks over my grave

I never thought about creating an Amazon author page before it was suggested to me by the marketing team of the publisher of my two eBooks. To be honest, I didn't know an author could create an Amazon author page at all. I guess I thought they had cybercorporate shoemaker elves to do that. When I got on to create my page, I figured I'd include the books Portland Noir and The Pacific Northwest Reader, since I'm a contributor - and how about my two children's picture books, which I wrote years ago under an old name - clicky, clicky - and suddenly:

I have an author page.

Under my old name.

OK, you don't understand. I tried for years to shed that name. Fifteen years. Pretty much since I got married to the man and ran off to the circus in the first place - or maybe before. My way of trying not to make a big mistake in my life back then was to make it and then spend fifteen years pretending I hadn't. I'm not here to tell tales on that marriage. But it's been finished for years, that name has been gone from me for years - and yet here it is again.

You know that feeling when the devil walks over your grave? Is that the expression? A ghost? No, a circus parade. With lots of trombones and one of those cars where you open the door and the clowns keep coming out. There was only one book attached to this page, one of the children's books, and I sure as hell wasn't going to add any more so I clicked like mad trying to get it to go away but in the end had to give up and go to work.

All day at work I could hardly concentrate, knowing this was out there. Shouldn't have been a big deal - that children's book already had my old name on it, after all - and I'd probably - hopefully - be able to set things right with an author page for the me I was now - but the memories of those old years, me with that old name, the way I felt about myself when I was that person with that old name - each memory was another clown out of the car.

"Don't worry," Stephen said. "You'll be you again soon."

In the evening I sent a very detailed e-mail to Amazon. For every change you try to make, Amazon gives you steps to fix the problem and then you have to wait five days for the changes to happen. After that five days I had an author page.

Under my old name.

With all my books on it.


Clown car.

Another e-mail to Amazon, another five days. Eventually I got things sorted out and now I have a brand new author page under the right name and for the right me...

here

But it surprised me how much the whole situation unnerved me. Tegge. One tiny word I wore for fifteen years. That was mine for fifteen years. That I could hardly stand, now, to look at. Tegge. Five tiny letters full of the shame I felt at never fully fitting in in the circus, the shame I felt at letting myself be buried under other people's lives and wants, the shame I felt at staying so long where I didn't belong, the shame I felt at leaving. Most of what I recoil at in that name is not the husband I left but the me I was. Tegge. Five letters - and look. Those two Gs sitting dead center. My first name buried inside. Clown car. You can run away from the circus and join some other life, but in some ways, that old you is still inside.

first interview

I can do this.

This is what I tell myself as I sit in front of the computer with the interview questions up on the screen and the microphone plugged in and the phone [dreaded phone] in my hand. I can call up some man I've never spoken to and ask him all sorts of questions about his life and not trip all over my tongue because of my heart which is not pounding in my chest as hard as it did that time I sat with the phone in my hand for forty minutes [I timed it] trying to call up Dan Hayman and ask him to winter formal.

I'm over forty now and I should be able to get on the phone without going into a panic. The clock says 6:59. I can do this.

The I-can-do-this I tell myself sitting with the phone in my hand this time around is different from the I-can-do-this I told myself when I was offered the chance to write two eBooks in two months. That was more like I-assume-I-can-do-this, which I tend to do all the time, before I stop and think about what the this will entail:

Researching all the statistics anyone ever wanted to gather on becoming an accountant or a glazier [someone who installs and repairs windows]. Compiling the entire [interesting part of the] history of the accountant and the glazier. Creating four to five profiles each of accountants and glaziers from different parts of the country and in different segments of their careers, meaning hunting down and contacting these people and interviewing, interviewing, interviewing.

The clock says 6:59. I'm about to make my first call to conduct my first interview. If I haven't come up with the perfect set of questions to produce the perfect set of answers, it's not the end of the world.

Stephen showed me how to hook the microphone up to the computer and I experimented with the laptop's sound recorder to make sure it will actually record, and I practiced with the phone to make sure I know how to put it on speaker.

The clock says 6:59. If I say stupid things and come across as a complete ass, it's not the end of the world.

When the clock says 7:00, I tell myself it's better to wait one more minute because it would look weird if I called exactly on the dot.

When he answers the phone, he says, "Hello?" and I'm an Amazon warrior, a prom queen, a presidential candidate. I'm pretty sure my smile gives off a gleam.

"Hi! This is Gigi! Is this Bob?!"

"Nope," he says, "it's Bill."

Oh no, it's a wrong number, yay, it's a wrong number. "Oh, I thought I was looking for a Bob. Uh..." looking at my notes on the computer screen, "Dole?"

"Yeah, Bill," he says. "Doyle."

I just called my first interviewee Bob Dole.

He pretends not to notice. I put him on speaker phone and we start recording. I manage to ask him how he first became a glazier, and he starts to talk and he keeps talking. His voice is friendly and laid back, and he's saying all sorts of interesting things and I love him and I'm so happy and I can actually do this.

I look over at the sound recorder open on the computer screen. It's recorded exactly one minute of audio and stopped.

Oh holy flying hell, what the hell use is a sound recorder if if only records in one minute increments?

Bob, I mean Bill is still talking. I'm going to have to interrupt him so I can start a new file. Then I'm going to have to interrupt him at one-minute intervals throughout the entire probably half hour phone call.

During minute number three, as Bill's talking, the recording of minute number two starts playing, so I - and Bill - can hear Bill's voice and - even better - my  braying ass voice loud over everything.

"Oh, wait, oh, wait, I'm sorry!" and I'm fumbling for the mouse to try to find the button to shut the damn thing off. I can't make it stop. My hands are sweating. It's not the end of the world.