All In a Day's Work
Or, How I support my Writing Habit

Don't Quit Your Day Job

The above is a saying that I've heard so much since I started writing, that I've taken it to heart.  Behind this saying is the basic dictum that the vast majority of writers cannot make a living wage off their writing.  There are some who can, but--face it--we can't all be Steven King or Tom Clancy.  

So, in order to support one's writing habit, one must work a regular job.  Regular jobs can be varied, boring, exciting, strange, ordinary, hateful, enjoyable, and whatever other modifier  you want to throw at them.

Regular jobs I have known

• Library Page.  I worked my way through college working in both college and local city libraries.  Sounds like a great job for a writer, right?  Think again.  I almost spent more time checking out the books in the stacks than I did doing what I was supposed to be doing.
   
  
• Electronics Assembly.  I worked in both unskilled and skilled areas in semiconductor and PC Assembly for over a decade, starting as a trainee, and ending up as a line supervisor.
  
  
• Quality/Reliability Technology. ISO9000 Consultant/technical writer.  I got into this area from Quality Engineering.  I worked with over a dozen companies in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, helping them document their processes, set up their internal audit systems (and a handful their document control systems), helped train internal audit teams, as well as key staff on corrective and preventive action systems.
  
  
• Software technical support.  For lack of another job, I got into this area.  Worked with customers who not only had software problems, but also customers who had problems using the software.  This type of work has its ups and downs, the ups coming when one receives boxes of candy or other goodies from extremely grateful customers you have helped. 
  
  
• Systems Administrator/IT Manager.  Small company, not many people, and me being one of only two (besides a senior programmer) who could repair or trouble-shoot a computer.  Purchased, set up, repaired, and maintained corporate PCs, corporate LAN/server, customer support database, corporate website, and dealt  with ISP used by company when Internet problems reared their ugly heads.