BY DAVE BARRY
(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published October 3, 1999)
As a professional newspaper columnist with both medical AND dental benefits, I receive many letters from people who'd like to get into my line of work.
''Dear Dave,'' they write. ''I'm sick of my boring, dead-end job as a (lawyer, teacher, office worker, politician). How do I develop the skills I need to obtain a job like yours, where you have an opportunity to make a difference, even though you never actually do?'' OK, then: Today I'm going to take you ''behind the scenes'' here at Dave Barry Inc., and reveal, step-by-step, exactly how I write a column:
Step One is to come up with a topic. I am always thinking about possible topics, from the moment my alarm goes off at 6 a.m., through the moment I actually get out of the bed, at around 10:15. During that period, I take a series of decompression naps while monitoring the morning TV news shows to find out what the news is. Unfortunately, the morning news shows no longer show the news. They're too busy showing the crowd of people who stand around outside the TV studio for hours on end waving at the camera and holding signs that say: ``HI!''
Evidently, these people are too stupid to operate telephones, and this is the only way they have to communicate with their families or ward attendants back home. Sometimes the TV personalities go outside; I always hope that they'll point firearms at the sign-holders and yell, ''GO HOME,'' but instead they ask the sign-holders where they're from. The fascinating answers never fail to amaze and delight everybody (''Ohio?? Great!!'').
So I have no column topic when I emerge from the bedroom to fix myself a hearty breakfast of coffee with extra coffee. My next step is to look through the daily newspaper, which I have found to be an invaluable and amazingly rich source of advertisements for women's underwear. Every other page has an ad featuring female models in lingerie; you get the impression, from newspapers, that at least 80 percent of the Gross National Product is brassieres. Why? Do women really need to be sold on the concept of underwear? Do they smack their foreheads and go, ``THAT'S what I need! Something under my outer clothing!''?
But you can't write a professional column about women's underwear. You need a topic with some ''meat'' to it, such as the U.S. trade deficit, which is an important issue that the newspaper often puts next to the brassiere ads. And so, with this topic in mind, I head for my home office, which is an area that I would estimate, for tax purposes, covers 94 percent of the total square footage of my home.
I work at home because, as a professional writer, I find that a solitary environment enables me, whenever the muse strikes, to clip my toenails. This particular muse strikes more often than a French labor union. I'll be pondering the trade deficit, and I'll glance at my toenails and think, ''Hey! Those babies have grown at LEAST three thousandths of an inch since I last clipped them!'' So I grab the clippers, which I always keep handy, and soon I'm hard at work. All your top writers do this. If you don't believe me, go up to, say, Norman Mailer, and have some friends hold him down while you remove his shoes and socks. If his toenails aren't trimmed to the base, I'll pay you $10. I'll need color photographs.
Another reason creative individuals prefer to work at home, as opposed to an office, is that when you need to scratch yourself, you don't have to sneak behind the copying machine and settle for a hasty grope. At home, you can rear back and assault the affected region with both hands, or, if you want, gardening implements.
But you cannot scratch yourself forever. You are not a professional baseball player; you are a newspaper columnist, and sooner or later you have to ''knuckle down'' and get to work on the task at hand, which is: lunch.
After lunch, it's time to get back to thinking about the trade deficit. The key, with a complex issue like this, is: research. A professional newspaper column has to be 800 words long, which is why I cannot say it enough: research, research, research. Among the questions that need to be answered are: What, exactly, IS the ''trade deficit''? For this kind of technical detail, I get on the telephone to my Research Assistant, Judi Smith, who is a wealth of information.
''Judi,'' I say, ``How come there are so many newspaper ads for women's underwear?''
''I think because men like to look at women in brassieres,'' she replies.
My wife, who also works at home and is listening to this discussion, notes: ``All those ads look the same.''
Both my wife and Judi agree that nobody ever buys a bra from an ad. It frankly makes me wonder if this could be a contributing factor to the trade deficit. Somebody should think about this. I'd do it, but these toenails are not getting any shorter.
Working at Home: The Ugly Truth
In the future, thanks to advances in personal computing and Internet connectivity, more and more people will be working at home. While there are some obvious benefits to this arrangement, such as gasoline cost savings and the ability to devote more of the workweek to bidding on Battlestar Gallactica memorabilia, there is a dark side as well: working at home greatly reduces the opportunities for office romance.
Gone are the liquor-fueled holiday parties and the team-building retreats that have traditionally served as the tinderboxes for employee-on-employee passion. Gone, too, are the monthly budget meetings, where passed notes and stolen glances often lead to more – so much more. Lonely and isolated, the home-based employee will start looking for love in all the wrong places. And therein lies the ugly truth of working at home: when you're your own boss, you have no one to sexually harass but yourself.
Consider my story a cautionary tale. When I got the opportunity to start working at home a couple of years ago, I jumped at the chance, envisioning the huge spike in productivity that would naturally result from not having to shave or put on pants. In those early, innocent days, I was putting in robust eight-hour workdays, interrupted only by lunch and semi-hourly visits to YouTube. But then, after three days of this happy routine, everything changed in an instant. After using the bathroom one morning, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and, almost without thinking, I uttered these two fateful words: "Looking good."
When I got back to my desk, I was rattled. Perhaps my comment to myself in the bathroom had merely been friendly, but a part of me felt that it was inappropriate. And that come-hither expression on my face was unmistakable: I had seen it many times before, most notably on my Match.com profile. No, there could be little doubt: I was my own boss, and I was hitting on myself.
Feelings of unease soon gave way to other feelings – feelings of shame. Had I, as my own boss, created a hostile work environment for myself? Or had I, as my own employee, "asked for it" by showing up to work wearing nothing but underwear? Making matters worse, I had no one to turn to in my hour of torment. One thing they don't tell you when you decide to work at home: in addition to being your own boss, you're your own H.R. person.
Trapped in a hell of my own creation, I had no choice but to downsize myself and outsource my job to India. As Draconian as that solution might sound, it felt then, and still feels today, like the only way out. At this very moment, I am probably sexually harassing myself in an industrial park in Bangalore, but at least I don't have to know about it.
Posted on Sun, Dec. 16, 2007