Why I fail in 5 words or less

Here it is:

I have to be challenged.

It says so right in my student evaluation from 1996. I have spent weeks without rest grinding out a screenplay that I have no intention to sell. I have practiced half an hour a night for the last three weeks singing a song that I will most likely never perform in public. I have written dissertations which will never be published. I've taken the LSAT three times, but never for a grade, and I'll probably never take it.

Yet I never got straight A's in school. I've never been a manager at a job. I've never been paid to write. When I was in a band, I never memorized my own lyrics (yet I can still write every word of entire albums from that time period). Even now, I'm in a play in three weeks, and I never practice my lines. There's no challenge in it.

Suppose I do become the top performer at work. What's in it for me? A raise? Big deal. I can't get promoted from my current position, and my work might be recognized, but it won't make any difference to anyone else, and I don't really feel a pressing need to help the company I work for. Suppose I did go take the LSAT, and got top score, maybe even a scholarship. I still can't afford law school, not without a free ride, and I will never be a rich lawyer– I want a family, and lawyers don't get those. The list goes on.

Now, here's the thing. I will always fail, professionally. This is because you're never hired for a position that challenges you. Look in the paper. If you want to be a contract analyst, you must have 6 years experience with contracts. If you want to be a corporate manager, you must have an MBA and a good background. If you want to be a professional writer, you have to have been writing for so long for free that you can spit out a 600 word op-ed in your sleep. The only prerequisite that all jobs have in common is this: they cannot be challenging to you. If you want to be CEO of a company, maybe you can someday, but you have to wait until you've been a top level manager for so long that you have every eventuality of corporate politics memorized. Christ, people are saying that Obama's not electable as President because he's only been a Senator for four years. Probably the most challenging job on the planet, and we won't put someone in office until they're completely numb to the possible challenges they face, even after we've had to deal with eight years of a nepotized dipshit of the system. Clinton said it herself in her 3:00am advertisement.

The only way I will ever be good at a job is if someone can make a mistake in the hiring process and hire me when they shouldn't have. Suddenly, I will be alive, inspired, focused. I will be the greatest thing to happen to them. All because I'm not qualified to do the job.