“Eddie—it’s not giving up. You can’t look at it like that.”
“But you don’t just switch careers.”
“Actually—you do. Look at everyone we know who did just that.”
She was right. Off the top of my head, I could list quite a few of our friends and acquaintances who’d made career changes over the last seven or eight years.
But I was out of gas. And I’d been out of gas for a hell of a long time. I was too old to start at the bottom. Too tired.
Adapt or die.
I was destined for the second option, unless a miracle came my way.
CHAPTER FOUR
I pulled up to Larry’s house and parked. Another couple of weeks had passed, and there were still no job prospects on the horizon. I hadn’t totally given up on landing another staff reporter position, but I was throwing my name in the hat for a wide variety of openings, everything from marketing positions to paralegal work.
But so far, no luck. My age was working against me. I was almost fifty, and I could tell you that fifty wasn’t the new thirty, as had been wildly reported in those clickbait headlines. Fifty was over the hill, just as it had always been.
So I was turning to Larry for advice. He was my closest friend, and that right there said a lot about me, because he was also my only real friend. I’d long ago stopped nurturing friendships, and that had now come back to haunt me. If most jobs were gained by networking with friends and acquaintances—as statistics suggested—I was doomed. I had damn few of either.
Larry had done exactly what Jenny had wanted me to do, which was why I was turning to him for advice. And he’d done it seven years ago, exactly when Jenny had wanted me to do it. While he was still one of my fellow reporters at the LA Times, he’d felt the winds of change blowing across the economic landscape, and he’d started laying the groundwork for a new career.
It had paid off.
He hadn’t just read the memo, he’d taken decisive action. He dove head first into the new form of journalism. He created clickbait headlines and started writing stories in the first person, adding entertaining asides and opinions, and opting for spin rather than facts.
Within two years, he had his own online blog/column for the LA Times, focused on California politics. The blog/column didn’t get into nitty-gritty policy questions, but instead focused on political infighting and his own opinions about those clashes. It all made for an entertaining read.
Bob not only approved of Larry’s column, but gave him more resources. The result was that Larry was able to grow his own “brand” on the LA Times’s dime. Then, once he had a substantial following, he quit and started his own news site.
In other words, Larry had adapted and thrived.
Since he’d left the Times, he’d grown his news site to include investigative stories. And not just any investigative stories. His brand focused on unsolved Southern California murders, especially those that could generate sensational headlines. And, of course, each story contained commentary and opinions about every aspect of the crimes.
“I’m sorry they let you go,” Larry said at the door.
“Me too. But thanks for not saying anything to Jenny.”
“I’m still on the record as thinking that was a bad idea.”
“Yeah—well, congrats. You were right. She turned down a job.”
“Ow. That hurts.”
“That’s why I’m here. I’ve got to turn this around.”
But my outlook was gloomy. So gloomy that, as Larry led me through his house and into his office, I found myself resenting the bounce I saw in his step. I supposed I never noticed it before because the contrast between us had never been so great. He’d always been outgoing, while I’d been more introverted, but right now, in addition to that, he was blossoming while I was in retreat.
I’d retreated so much that a few weeks ago I had declined Larry’s invitation to go to the Oregon/USC football game, something I would never have done if I’d still been employed. He was a Duck—a graduate of the University of Oregon—and I’d taken a liking to USC football during my first year in LA. It was a tradition for us to watch that matchup, either in person or on TV. We’d seen the last fourteen games between the rivals together.
But not this year.
Larry sat down at his desk. Behind him, through the window, stood a lush tree, heavy with bright yellow lemons. Time to make lemonade, I thought, which was trite, but at least it was my first positive thought all week. Maybe Larry would come through with some good advice.
He swiveled his chair away from the three computer monitors that graced his desk, and motioned for me to take a seat.
I did, and jumped right in. “I need a job. And I need it yesterday.”
“How did you leave it with Bob?”
“He fired me. That’s how I left it.”
“Did you make a counteroffer?”
“It wasn’t a negotiation.”
“I mean, did you offer to work as a freelancer?”
“I can’t afford to work as a freelancer.”
“You can’t afford not to work as a freelancer.”
“I’m not following you.”
“It’s time to build your own brand. And if you can use the Times’s resources to do it, then you should.”
“I don’t want to build my own goddamn brand. I just want a job that pays a decent wage—enough to keep Jenny and me afloat, and enough to pay Jake and Hannah’s college tuition.”
“Listen, I get it.” Larry was unruffled by my frustration. “You know I love my job. But it’s not because I made myself into a brand.” He used dismissive air quotes around “brand,” which made me feel a little better. “It’s because I get paid to do what I love. That’s what I’m getting at. You have to go back to basics and figure out a way to get paid to do what you love.”
“I was hoping for concrete leads, not a Tony Robbins pep talk.”
He laughed. “I’m getting there. But you need to take stock. Otherwise you’re floundering.”
I let out a deep breath. He’d hit a chord.
“When it comes right down to it,” he said, “that’s what I did when I realized the shit was going to hit the fan. I took stock. I lived and breathed Southern California politics—that was me regardless of my job at the LA Times. So that’s what I based my transition on. And when I started my own site, I looked to other things I loved. Murder mysteries—sounds ridiculous, right? But I’d loved them since I was a kid, so I added that to my site, and it’s been a boon. So what do you love, Eddie? Do you still love reporting on the LA City Council? Do you still love digging up what’s going on behind closed doors at the DWP? What about the school board?”
I looked away from him as I considered his questions. I stared at the lemon tree, hoping for an insight, hoping for a glass of lemonade packed with insights. After ten seconds or so, I looked back at my friend and told him the truth.
“No, I don’t love any of that anymore.”
His eyes widened. “Wow. Really?”
“Yeah. Really.”
“That’s a shocker.”
“To me, too. I still like the investigating part, but not the stuff I’m actually investigating.”
“So you really do need to take stock.”
“I don’t have time to take stock. And even if I did, landing a job is hard as hell. I’ve applied for all kinds of jobs, but I can’t get any traction. Not even an interview. And most of the time, not even a return email.” I frowned and told him something I hadn’t planned on telling him. “I’m resorting to tutoring. I registered with agencies yesterday.” I was ashamed of that, but I wanted to tell someone, other than Jenny, how bad things were.
“That’s how fucked up our society is,” Larry said. “We consider tutoring—teaching—as ‘resorting’ to something awful.”
“Yeah, and if you go by the pay, we consider substitute teaching worse than tutoring. I looked into that first—the pay was pathetic.”
“You might have
to accept pathetic pay for a while if you move into a new career.”
“I can’t. I just don’t have the savings to do it. Not with college tuition coming up.”
“That makes it tough.”
“Yeah. Tutoring is just to have some cash coming in. I was really hoping you might have some ideas up your sleeve.”
“I’ll reach out and see if I can dig something up. But it’s going to be freelance. A lot of online news sites use freelancers.”
“That’s fine. It’s not like I have a choice.”
Larry glanced over his shoulder and checked his computer monitors. “I wish you were a techie, Eddie. I’m hiring one to boost my web traffic so I can get more advertising dollars.”
“You’re doing well enough to hire an employee?”
“Yeah—I turned another corner in the last couple months. And it looks like I’m going to hire a USC Trojan. The Annenberg School has a major that fits right in with what I need.” He grinned, trying to lighten the mood. “I wanted to hire a Duck, but USC grads have the goods.”
“Fight on,” I said, quoting the USC fight song, with false enthusiasm.
*
I drove along Mulholland to my next tutoring session. I loved the view from up here at night. It truly inspired a leave-all-your-troubles-behind outlook on life. The Valley’s wide boulevards were laid out in long ribbons, and decorated in red taillights and yellow streetlights stretching all the way to the Santa Susana Mountains up north. And between those long glittering ribbons, thousands of neighborhoods sparkled and glowed, built solidly and forever out of ephemeral California dreams.
I hoped that I, too, could build a solid foundation again for my life. I’d done it once, but it was increasingly looking like doing it again was going to be impossible. On the bright side, I had already increased the income I was getting from tutoring, even though I knew the job was just a temporary fix.
At first, I hadn’t liked the job because of the pay. The teaching was rewarding, but the money was so piss poor that it soured the whole experience.
Then I saw the light.
By not going through a tutoring agency, I earned five times more per hour. It still wasn’t anywhere near what I needed for my family—the bills were piling up—but it was enough that we were falling behind at a slower rate. And tutoring also broke up the drudgery of looking for a full-time, professional job.
Tonight, I was adding a new tutoring client to my roster, which meant a little more money would be coming in. The clients I’d gotten on my own had all come from an ad I’d put up in a coffee shop in Sherman Oaks. A coffee shop frequented by an upscale clientele. The ad had netted five good clients—wealthy parents willing to pay top dollar to give their kids an edge. And those five clients had turned out to be enough, because they had passed on my name to other parents, and two months later, my plate was full.
Tonight’s client was the last of the new ones. I couldn’t take on any more or it would cut into my job search. Not that the job search was going well. I’d had three interviews, all for marketing jobs, and not one offer. But every time I was tempted to give up, to quit looking for a professional job, I’d think back to something I’d overheard during one of my tutoring sessions.
Brad Vogel, a smart kid who didn’t need tutoring, but whose parents insisted on it, had taken a bathroom break. A couple of minutes later, I heard his mom yelling at him.
“Get back in there!” she said. “I’m not paying for you to check your iPhone.”
“If he’s so smart,” Brad snapped back at her, “why is he like fifty years old and tutoring, huh?”
What dignity I still had left crumbled. My body closed in on itself, as if it was involuntarily retreating. I felt small and insignificant, and I was once again forced to face the reality of my situation. Brad Vogel was right. He’d spoken the unvarnished truth.
I didn’t hear what his mom said back to him, but I didn’t need to. I knew it was something along the lines of: “He’s here to help you with your paper, and if you listen to him, maybe you won’t end up like him.”
*
I turned off Mulholland onto Beverly Glen. Then, just a few blocks down, I turned into a new housing development. It consisted of McMansions, one after another. And not of the kind that was almost acceptable. These were of the sprawling, gaudy variety, which I hated.
I cruised through the development, keeping my eyes peeled for the correct address and waiting for my Waze app to tell me I’d arrived at my destination. As I approached the house, unease crept over me, as it had been doing more and more lately. I felt queasy and unsure of myself.
How the hell am I going to make it? How the hell am I going to make sure my family can make it?
“You have arrived at your destination,” the Waze app informed me.
“Not really,” I said. I wasn’t even close to arriving at my destination: a stable life built on a new career. But what I didn’t know, as I pulled up to the house, was that I had arrived at my destination. I was on the doorstep of an opportunity that would change everything.
I parked the car and sat there for a few seconds, putting on my game face, which consisted of a jovial smile, a smile that covered up my desperate state.
Then I headed to the oversized, double front doors, engraved with the silhouettes of lions, as if this were the entrance to a French castle. How much more gaudy could you get?
I rang the doorbell and heard the sound of overly eager chimes. Within a few seconds, the door swung open, revealing a broad-shouldered man in his mid-forties. It was almost always the mom who greeted me, so having the dad open the door was unexpected.
“I’m Ben Kingsley,” he said, and reached out to shake.
“Eddie Hart,” I replied, and shook his hand. My smile was still plastered across my face.
“Come on in.”
I stepped inside, and he led me through a cavernous living room populated with expensive furniture and modern artwork. I wondered what he did for a living. All my clients were well off, but he seemed more well off than the others, which didn’t fit in with him being at home at seven p.m. If he had a high-paying, high-powered job—the kind needed to maintain the upkeep of a faux French castle—then he should have still been at work.
“So, you got the scoop from my wife about Mason?” he said.
“Sure did.” That sounded jovial enough, didn’t it? “We’re going to be working on his writing. Focusing on clarity and conciseness.”
He laughed, a nice hearty laugh, as if he didn’t have a financial care in the world. “Yeah—and if that great summary is any indication of your work, then Mason should be in good hands.”
“Before you know it, he’ll be writing like Hemingway.”
“If that’s true, you’re a bargain.”
We both laughed. Ben Kingsley was so relaxed and quick with the joke that I wondered if he was independently wealthy. I imagined that if you didn’t have to work for a living, you’d be as easygoing as he was.
We entered a sleekly furnished den, and he motioned toward a desk along the far wall. Two chairs had been pulled up to it.
“Is this a good work space for you?” he asked.
“Perfect.”
“Great. I’ll round Mason up.”
“Have him bring his last couple of English papers.”
“Will do.”
Ben exited the room, and I sat down at the desk and pulled out my MacBook Pro. I’d bought a new, opaque, hard-shell case for it, hoping my clients wouldn’t notice how beat-up it was. Of course, who was I trying to fool? As Brad Vogel had made so painfully clear, anyone could see that I was a middle-aged man who had resorted to tutoring. At the LA Times, I’d never felt self-conscious about my ancient laptop. It was a point of pride that I was banging away on my old workhorse.
I opened the computer, turned it on, and looked around the den. Like the living room, it was adorned with expensive furniture. So what did Ben do for a living? Maybe Mason would drop a hint during the tutoring s
ession.
The boy stepped into the room, and I introduced myself, then made small talk before we started working. He was a straightforward kid, and I liked him immediately.
“Even though I want my writing to improve,” he said, “it’s not like I plan to get a job writing.”
Wise choice, I thought. Stay away from writing—especially journalism. “So you’re already thinking about what kind of careers you’re interested in,” I said.
“Yeah. Why not get an early start? It’s something I’m going to be doing for a long time.”
I smiled. “Any ideas so far?”
“Something where you actually make a product.”
“What kind of product?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Maybe apps?”
“No—that market is flooded. Apps are commodities now.”
Commodities. That put a grin on my face. The kid was smart.
“Does your dad make an actual product at his job?” I said.
“Nope—he’s an investor.”
I was so desperate for a new career that, in that moment, I actually thought I could become a successful investor too. As if anyone could just wake up one morning and make a good living investing, without training or previous experience.
That crazy scenario passed just as quickly as it had come, and I pulled out a writing prompt, the one I used to assess a student’s writing skills. I gave it to Mason and went through the instructions with him. As he worked on the prompt, I read through his English papers.
Then we got to work. We went over the prompt, focusing on sentences that were egregiously out of control. He pushed back a little—most bright kids were defensive, so this was to be expected—but I persisted. I’d discovered that it was hard for bright kids to admit they weren’t the best at something. But when they finally conceded the point, they were also the most dedicated to improving.
About an hour into our two-hour session, Mason was getting restless, so I suggested a ten-minute break.
“Sounds great,” he said, and pulled out his cell phone. He hadn’t checked it even once during our session, another sign that he was good kid.
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