TERRY GROSS: When you're doing a day job like cleaning, does it affect your, like, sense of your self, your identify? Are you able to say well, I'm a writer, I make my living cleaning. Or do you think oh gosh, I'm going to be cleaning the rest of my life. I really wanted to be a writer and I'm just stuck here cleaning. Some people it really gets to when they have a day job that doesn't fit with what it is that they really, really want to be doing.
Transcript
GROSS: When you're doing a day job like cleaning, does it affect your, like, sense of your self, your identify? Are you able to say well, I'm a writer, I make my living cleaning. Or do you think oh gosh, I'm going to be cleaning the rest of my life. I really wanted to be a writer and I'm just stuck here cleaning. Some people it really gets to when they have a day job that doesn't fit with what it is that they really, really want to be doing.
SEDARIS: Well, I mean, like I said, I write in the evenings, so ... I mean, I guess I could stay home all during the day and say, "Well, I'm a writer now."
GROSS: (Laughter).
SEDARIS: But I don't really see the—I don't really see the point. And the cleaning part of it, I don't, I don't—I mean, I'd like to think that all work is pretty much equal. It doesn't really matter what you do. It doesn't bother me, the work. I like it. There's a before and an after.
I mean, I like cleaning someone's home if they're really filthy. That's my favorite. But some of the people I clean for, it's clean when I get there. And there's really not much for me to do. So you don't feel like there's a before and an after. So I'd much rather go to a slob's house and—because afterwards they look at it like you've done something they can never possibly do. Like you have retuned the engine to the car. Like it was something that took—or you, you have removed their kidney.
GROSS: (Laughter).
SEDARIS: Like you did something that required such skill and it was a skill that they can never, ever master. Anyone can plug in a va—a trained chimp can vacuum an apartment.
