Here's sort of a quandry. The main character sits at his cubicle and immerses himself in work. What sort of work should he do?
It's the first and last time we see him at work. What he does is not all that important to the plot. The more attention given to his line of work, the more the reader would expect it to play a role.
He makes non-work related call, he receives a call from his wife, he interacts with an irratting coworker in the breakroom who tells him something strange, but we never see the coworker again.
I'd like it better if its an office job. But then I don't want to use a cliche: Computer programming (taken from my life), accounting, risk management...
I want to reader note he goes to work and has the above events happen, but I don't want them to want details. Maybe something dull, unexciting...
Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
In that case, I would recommend the steretype.
Why? Because it fades into the background. It is so dull, expected, and uninteresting that nobody notices, even if you use some details from your own life that make it realistic. The worst thing you can do, IMO, if you want something to go mostly unremarked upon, is to make it something non-stereotyped. (IT's not cliche, BTW...that's the wrong term for it, I think.)
Posted by NewsBys (Member # 1950) on :
Problem is if you make it too boring, will that make the story a snoozer at that point.
What is the scene's goal?
Posted by ChrisOwens (Member # 1955) on :
You've read the previous permutation. But I'm moving things around.
Basically he goes to work, tries to call Penn who is obviously being coy and timing things, trying getting him to touch the card laced with ovatic compounds to make him more malleable.
Then his wife calls him at lunchtime, suddenly her mother is ill with flulike symptoms. She wants to stay with her mother for the evening to make sure she's well.
Then the chemicals start to work on him, he feels dizzy. He goes to the breakroom for coffee and chats with his coworker. His coworker claims to have seen him downtown the night before.
Posted by RFLong (Member # 1923) on :
Do you have to give him a specific job?
A lot of desk jobs have a number of things in common - "the office", cubicles, pcs, the ABC report or whatever, coffee breaks. I don't know your story but if the type of job is not important other than he's at an office, has a desk and a phone line, I wouldn't get more specific than that.
R
Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
Keep in mind that making him have a routine job that we might think of as dull does not make the story dull, especially if it is dull enough to slip into the background. The more interesting things will be someone trying to drug this guy. I don't think anyone will care at all what he does for a living.
Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :
What does Dilbert do for a living?
Or: how about technical support?
Or: he works at a call center.
I agree, you should know, even if it never matters enough to tell the reader.
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
The more important thing is that you need to have his attitude towards this job be reflected in the story somehow.
Just because the way a character makes his living is unimportant to you and to the reader, that doesn't mean that it can be unimportant to the character. People tend to be very involved in their work, unless they really hate their jobs, which is also a form of involvement. That doesn't mean that his job will affect the plot in any meaningful way, but it does affect the particulars of how he responds.
That said, make it a job that with which you or someone you know is personally familiar. Don't try to get exotic. If he's going to be an accountant, make sure you get an accountant's take on how an accountant might react to the events of your story. Try to avoid the "no competent [whatever] would ever [verb] that way" pitfall.
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
Dilbert is a great example, by the way. Nobody really knows or cares what his particular job is, other than that he's some kind of engineer. But so much of the humor of the strip comes out of his attitude towards his work, and his conflicts with people that don't take his job seriously.
Posted by Robyn_Hood (Member # 2083) on :
I was actually thinking along the same lines as wbriggs.
I was going to ask what Tom Hanks' job was in "Joe versus the Valcano".
I also agree that while it might not be important to the story, it can be important to the author. As writers, we have a way of building in nuances. It may not matter whether he is an engineer, marketing exec, auditor or I.T. guy, but if you're writing a story about the guy, it can help with characterization to know what his occupation is.
Posted by TaShaJaRo (Member # 2354) on :
There a many different types of “office” jobs and each one has a different personality associated with it. If he is an executive, he is likely to react to certain situations differently than a secretary or a computer tech. If you tell the reader what the character’s job is, you establish a personality type in the reader’s mind that may clash with the character’s responses later in the action unless you explain why he is different than the reader expects.
Posted by Pyre Dynasty (Member # 1947) on :
Joe was the cataloge distributor for a company that was proud of the fact that they made the grossest medical devices. (A notable sign "Home of the Rectal Probe") But I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't watched it last night.
You could make him Assistant to the executive vice-president in charge of office dynamics. He doesn't even have to know what that means beyond when someone says cut the fat, he's the fat.
Posted by RavenStarr (Member # 2327) on :
Putting someone in an office scene makes it simple, if they're job isn't significant to the plot or anything, then there's no reason to say what he specifically does... the fact that he's sitting in front of a computer in a cubical with a phone is enough.
It's rare for anyone to ever know what characters do in office jobs... that's why people always use the office scene to begin with. In the movie Office Space... technically, he told us what he did, but it didn't really matter all that much because the entire concept that was in the movie applied to everyone that's ever had an office job of any kind...
Posted by autumnmuse (Member # 2136) on :
PyreDynasty: how wierd! I watched Joe vs. the Volcano last night as well!! And I'd never seen it before, and I hadn't seen this thread, though when I read it just now that was the movie I immediately thought of, along with Office Space, The Matrix, and the Dilbert cartoons. And I rented it, not saw it on TV. Huh.
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
In Joe vs. the Volcano the important thing isn't the job Joe does but what his job is doing to him. If the POV character actively hates his job, then that's what he does at work, and that tells you something about the character. In the case of Joe vs. the Volcano, that is a vitally important bit of character information that dramatically affects the plot.
Posted by keldon02 (Member # 2398) on :
Back in the age of black and white TV there was a long running popular show where the father character never told anyone what his job was. The show ran for years and all they ever said was he went to the 'office'. Why not just beg the question? Say it is a job so stifling and boring that he forgets it even before he leaves work.
AFAIK Scott Adams has never revealed Dilbert's company product.
Posted by RavenStarr (Member # 2327) on :
You know... it's funny that you should mention that "show"... I almost included that example in with my spew... that concept was very common back then... they only time we ever actually knew what the character did, is when it was possible for that job to play into a story line (like Daren working for an ad agency)...