I Quit My Job at 50 to Reinvent Myself. Pro Tip: Don’t Do This.
This story appeared online at Narratively on January 1, 2020.
In 2020, it was the third most read story and an editor’s pick.
Read full story here.
Excerpt:
It’s 2003 and I am stuck in the bowels of Verizon’s IT department, in a g-d-awful boring job. I’ve been working for various IT departments in Corporate America for 20 years and writing jokes for imaginary stage performances on the side. With a house, a husband, and two millennial children who need to be fed a constant diet of pizza, smoothies, and games for their Xboxes, Game Boys and PlayStations, I am resigned to staying put. October marks my 47th birthday. I only have 20 more years of this corporate drudgery, I reason. I am coming down the home stretch.
One morning, I come up with a phenomenal business idea, which will propel me out of Verizon and make me rich and famous: I’m going to start my own line of custom corporate fortune cookies. I will write up work-appropriate fortunes and stuff them into homemade fortune cookies, to be handed out as party favors. But, here’s my brilliant spin: On the back, instead of “Speak Chinese” it will say “Speak Yiddish.”