- This is an adapted excerpt from Laura Belgray's new book, "Tough Titties: On Living Your Best Life When You're the F-ing Worst."
- Laura Belgray is an award-winning TV writer, copywriting expert, and the founder of Talking Shrimp.
It's not that I don't like work. I just never liked hard work, which is any work I don't enjoy. Cleaning the sink. Writing a term paper. Quickbooks. On the other hand, I find great joy in going hard at work, that feels easy.
To me, easy money is earned not from very little work but work that feels so engrossing you want to do it all day until someone calls out, "Stop working and come to bed!"
I had a taste of easy money in 1994, in my early 20s. Not big money, but still — easy.
I was paid to post in a forum every day
During my unemployed time after being fired as a magazine copywriter, a former colleague named Michael called and offered me a gig. He was at an Internet startup. What that meant, no one really knew. We all used finger quotes around the phrase: "Internet startup." We got what email was. But what else did you do with the Internet?
Michael explained. His site, The Transom, would provide a thing called "content." It had a "bulletin board." This was "The Flintstones" version of a forum. I guess "The Jetsons" age version of a forum is Facebook, which is now for Flintstones-aged people. I'm one of them.
My job was to act like a paying member and post every day to help the forum look like — and thus become — an active, thriving community. A "fake it 'til you make it" model before you could buy followers. Any topic I wanted, Michael said. Just get the conversation going.
I was thrilled by the invitation to write about what mattered in the world: "Melrose Place" and "Beverly Hills, 90210." On "Melrose Place," these were the cliffhanger-heavy days of Alison becoming a drunk and Kimberly destroying lives and ripping off her wig. On "Beverly Hills, 90210," Dylan McKay was in a thrilling drug-addiction spiral, even doing hard stuff like heroin. Brendan, Brenda, Kelly, Steve Sanders, and the gang staged an intervention. They brought in a drug counselor played by a famous recovering addict and "One Day at a Time" star Mackenzie Phillips as sort-of-herself.
And me? I got paid to discuss this stuff! I wrote as passionately as any cub reporter you'd see in a movie, rushing back to the desk with a scoop. Pounding out my findings and thoughts. This was what it felt like to be absorbed in your work — to experience being a workaholic, that elusive disease I wanted almost as badly as I wanted a tapeworm. (Who doesn't? Free calories, no? Or does that not really work?)
I've always wanted to be a workaholic
The self-help shelves are teaming with books to help workaholics shake their "soul-crushing" condition. Meanwhile, whenever I've heard someone seek to overcome this trait, my reaction has always been, "Why? Where can I get some of that?" As someone who identifies as lazy, isn't suited for climbing the ladder, and has never been looked to go "nose to the grindstone," I knew early on that being addicted to my work, if I could ever find work that made me feel that way, would be the key to my success.
The engagement my Transom posts got was off the charts. By "engagement," I mean a lot of back and forth with one flirtatious guy, Geoff, who also liked the shows I was writing about.
After each post, I spent the rest of my day refreshing the Netscape browser to see if Geoff had commented yet. I met up with Geoff once at a place called Temple Bar. He brought his fiancée, which — from his hostage-y discomfort in saying, "Laura, this is Heather" — didn't seem to be his choice. So, my engagement was with the newly engaged. And by "off the charts," I mean there were no charts for engagement then. Few people knew how to get on the Internet, much less measure it. One ongoing conversation about a couple of prime-time soaps was considered viral.
The Transom paid me a weekly retainer. I was still living with my parents rent-free, so any money was gravy. And, the best part, I made it doing something I gladly would've done for free. It wasn't a real salary, and it only lasted a few glorious months, but it was the easiest buck I ever made and a little taste of what I wanted in a job.
It was my first time earning an income for writing in my own voice, as myself. Being paid for self-expression became, and remained, my definition of bliss. Many years later, I discovered a more lucrative way to achieve that work bliss: writing a newsletter. It's my own business, which comes along with its share of hard work I don't want to do. But on the whole, I'd call it easy money.
"Love what you do," they say, "and you'll never work a day in your life." Yeah, duh. Give me something to do that I love, and I'm there. I might even become — dare I say — a workaholic.
Laura Belgray is the founder of talkingshrimp.com and author of "Tough Titties: On Living Your Best Life When You're the F'ing Worst."