Edition #125: The Five Step Program

Plus, the best book of the past 125 years, a great podcast, and some cool events

Oct 13, 2022

How to Climb the Corporate Ladder - 11 Keys to Career Success

A Note From the Editor

I have a confession to make. Earlier this week, I sat down to write an essay for this newsletter at my local library. An hour passed, and another hour passed. I wanted to write something spooky, an experimental story/essay hybrid inspired by a recent chance visit to a historical NYC hotel. I did, for the record, get some words on the page, but the process felt like forcing my limbs through a giant bowl of pudding—uncomfortable and close to impossible. Every word my fingers produced felt juvenile. I thought: I don’t even really want to do this / why do I think I can do this / who am I doing this for? It’s an intrusive process any writer understands, I think. it comes with the territory. Eventually, I closed my laptop, defeated, and frolicked down a well-worn mental spiral of questioning my life’s purpose. I decided I would give myself a break this week and send out a throwback edition.

And then, just last night, I took up a friend on a last-minute invitation to go see the Broadway revival of Death of a Salesmen. The play spoke to me in such a different way as an adult—particularly, the ruthless chasing of the American Dream and the futility of it, how spending your entire life pursuing something you'll think you’re supposed to want is no noble feat. The play was written in 1949 and is still relevant today, maybe even more so. I read that when it was produced in China, a country whose ideals and expectations are vastly different from those in America, the actors had no trouble understanding the themes of the play. Family power dynamics are universal, as are expectations of self and society.

And so I woke up this morning still reeling from last night’s performance and I was reminded of a story I started back in 2019 when I was toiling away at a full-time job and felt the ever-present strain of purposelessness. That is the story I leave you with today, about a simple man who wants nothing more than basic security, who wholeheartedly believes if he follows a certain path he might achieve it.

_____

My job is important.

That’s the first thought that comes to mind when I open my eyes to the sound of Frank clawing at the front door with a desperation that might make you think the apartment is on fire.

My job is important and today I will be promoted to Full Time with benefits.

As I hop out of bed, brush my teeth, grab my brown bagged lunch (peanut butter and jelly and a packet of cheese crackers, all packed the night before), get dressed, check Frank’s food and water bowls, turn on the TV to Sesame Street to ensure he won’t be sitting in silence all day, maneuver out the door in a way that prevents his escape while he swats his protracted claws at my feet, walk down eight and a half pitch dark blocks to my bus stop, greet the bus driver, Barb, with a smile and take my seat in the very first row on the left-hand side, I repeat the phrase on a loop — My job is important, and today I will be promoted to Full Time with benefits.

The 52-minute ride happens mostly in the dark, but I know what is concealed behind the dusky morning: cow pastures, wheat fields, a state penitentiary, and an old corn syrup factory.

During the first part of my commute, I complete a crossword puzzle, carefully torn from the previous morning’s local gazette left on my neighbor's doorstep. Secured with her permission, of course.

Take whatever you want from that trash paper. It’s all expired coupons, anyway.

When the puzzle is finished, I visualize, thinking about all the children I am helping. I imagine them sitting in their classroom right after recess, all that kiddie energy drained from launching off the swings into the dirt and running around in circles. They’re utterly focused, their small, sticky hands folded atop their desks.

This is as far as I get when I hear Barb’s voice over the speaker. She’s peeking into the long rearview mirror searching for my eyes since I’m the only one on the nearly empty bus who gets off at this stop.

Bushnell Drive, this is Bushnell Drive.

My heart hammers audibly as I march towards the building, not only because of my heart murmur but also because I was granted the gift of another day of proving my worth.

Today is the day I will be promoted to Full Time with benefits.

I enter the building with my employee badge in my hand so as to not waste any time fumbling around. I smile at the sweaty security guard at the front desk. He’s absorbed by a video playing on his phone but I still call out, Good morning, sir.

He never responds verbally, but I can tell my greeting makes his day a little better.

No one else greets him with words, I noticed that. They are all too distracted, their hands glued to disposable coffee cups and cell phones, headphones plugged in their ears, sunglasses concealing their faces as though they’d rather be invisible to the world right up until the moment they settle at their cubicles.

I wonder whether they realize they’re missing out on so much time for useful positive interaction. It’s sad, really.

I used to be that way, too. The moment my eyes would flutter open, I‘d be hit by a wave of fatigue so powerful that I'd have to talk myself into not sleeping through the work day, every morning a compromise.

I would sleep through the entire bus ride before buying an extra large coffee from the Dunkin Donuts across the street from the office, chock full of ten creams and eight sugars. By the time I stumbled into the building, I was far too exhausted to acknowledge the security guard, let alone greet him.

How selfish I was, how unsettled! But now I’m happier than I’ve ever been. My life may seem the same on the outside, but inside I feel brand new. And it only took Five Steps.

It was during that low-energy phase that the Program stumbled into my life. Though I managed to make it to work every morning, the weekends were a different story. Friday night through Monday morning I spent horizontal, my body preferring the unconscious state over anything else. I kept the apartment dark and quiet with only the TV on as a source of light and background noise.

My eyes were half shut, my mind wading through muck when I heard a voice from the other side — namely, a character from a sitcom reciting her lines. She talked about how tired she was, sleeping 16-plus hours a day, unable to find a reason to be awake any longer. Even developing bedsores on her legs.

My head snapped up. I stared at her clear complexion on the screen, meeting her wide, honey-colored eyes with mine.

She wasn’t looking at me, she was looking at another actor whose face looked like Ken Barbie. His manicured fingers circled her wrist gently, but with urgency.

You should really talk to someone. Like, a therapist.

It was a sign, I figured. I began searching for help straight away, but therapy was reserved for people who had their life more together than I did, people with health insurance and Full Time jobs. I began watching therapy videos on YouTube instead, and it was there, in a perfectly timed ad played before a video, that I learned about the Five Step Program.

The Coach was an authoritative woman with wide, square shoulders and a knack for direct eye contact with the camera, but it was the testimonials that really got to me. Regular people, just like me, whose entire lives turned around after learning the Five Steps. One was on the brink of divorce, another filed for bankruptcy, another was practically homeless and now here they were on camera, smiling. Awake.

I’m a homeowner and a business owner and it only took Five Steps. Your entire life will be turned upside down if you just commit to this program, I swear!

Imagine my reaction when I clicked the ad and found out the Program was coming to my small town in just six months! The one-day conference would be held at the Holiday Inn Express and I knew I had to be there.

This was my answer. This would save me.

Then I saw the price tag.

$8.75 an hour afforded me rent and groceries, just barely, but not an expense like this, one that was larger than any sum of money I’d ever had at once.

The Program must not be for people like me, either, I realized, feeling utterly despondent.

But the very next day I found a crumpled $20 bill on the ground outside Dunkin Donuts. I put it straight into my savings jar at home. It was a sign. I decided that somehow, someway, I would save enough to cover the cost of the Program.

No more morning coffee, no more jars of strawberry jam or cheese crackers. I would live off Top Ramen, microwaved sweet potatoes, and the occasional crusty oatmeal cookie leftover from a meeting at work.

Every spare dollar went into that jar. I counted the money obsessively, every night and every morning. I began walking with my head down in search of abandoned bills I never found. Even my boss noticed.

What’s wrong with your neck, Decker? You look like a puppy who just pissed inside!

When the Program was only a week away, I was still coming up short. I emailed the Coach to explain my predicament.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way! I’ll only charge 12% interest on your unpaid balance instead of the standard 15%. We’ll invoice you monthly. Can’t wait to Transform Your Life™!

The elevator in our building has been broken for months now, so I climb six flights of stairs to get to my new desk. My colleagues are outraged, but I feel lucky to have this built-in exercise in my routine. Moving your body is important, especially during the workday.

When the elevator first broke, the office manager shuffled around our seating arrangements and the first floor became reserved for anyone who was too weak to walk upstairs. I was moved from the bottom floor to the top. The penthouse, as I like to call it.

This place is a fucking joke.

How long will it take them to get sued by the ADA before they fix the goddamn elevator?

A woman and a man I vaguely recognize are complaining loudly to each other a few steps ahead of me.

Can’t fix the elevator if it takes away from Carter's holiday bonus, god forbid.

I try to make eye contact, offering a smile because a friendly attitude is important, but the woman just exhales loudly, like she’s trying to see her breath on a cold morning.

This, I tell myself, is part of the reason I don’t socialize much at work. People here aren’t very happy and it's important to Avoid Drama (Step 3).

I called out of work for the first time in a year and nine months on the day of the Program. As instructed in my registration email, I brought only a notepad, a pencil, and an open mind.

Our chairs were set up in a semicircle with Coach in the middle. She instructed us to write down our Wildest Dreams on a piece of paper.

The only limits are self-imposed! When you dream big, your dreams become big. Trust me.

Her face seemed to be outlined with a pencil, a thick curvature running across her chin and jaw separating the pumpkin-colored skin of her face from her short, pale neck.

Pencils scratched frantically on paper to my right and left.

The bigger the better!

I wrote: Get promoted to Full Time with health benefits.

Now read what you wrote. Let it sink in, got it? OK, now write one more thing. Even bigger!

With a shaky hand, I wrote: Get a raise?

Even just writing it felt ridiculous. That’s how I knew the day was going to be life-changing.

72 steps later, I arrive at my cubicle and it feels like home. I tacked up a photo of Frank and I’ve also got a succulent my coworker gifted me before she left the job.

You want this? I’m just going to, like, toss it otherwise. You need something with life in this place if you don’t want your soul to totally die.

Before starting my work I Set My Goal (Step 2) for the day. It’s the same as every day: Today, I will work as hard as I can to get promoted to Full Time with benefits.

I close my eyes and repeat the goal ten times as I Visualise (Step 5) myself at the doctor’s office. I’m getting a physical, opening my mouth as the doctor shines a light down my throat.

Mhm, looks good.

I’m telling a stilted version of the truth about my diet and exercise regime and breathing deeply as the blood pressure reader squeezes around my forearm.

I’m sitting in the dentist's chair getting my teeth cleaned, unbothered by the taste of the bubblegum stuff they smear all over my gums, not minding the vacuum that sucks all the moisture from my mouth. I don't even blink when they tell me I have six cavities. Must’ve been all those sugars in my coffee!

I go so far as to imagine taking Frank to the vet for the first time.

How might I get him to stop spraying on my pillow? And, be honest, is claw removal cruel? I only ask because he likes to pounce on my face in the middle of the night and he’s scratched me up quite a bite, as you can see from these scars on my cheek, here. I don’t want to do anything to hurt him, Doc. What do you think?

I’ll admit, I didn’t love this job when I first started. It wasn’t until the Five-Step Program that I learned to take responsibility for why I ended up here.

Step One is Take Responsibility. You hate your job? You don’t have enough money? You’re sick of being alone? Guess what? You created these circumstances with your negative thoughts. Before you can achieve your Wildest Dreams, you must take responsibility for what you’ve got right now. Hate to say it, but it’s your fault. Let it marinate, people, it’s your fault.

Coach said the most poisonous part of a negative mind is a negative environment. If you live in poverty, say, and your building has broken windows and rats, that environment infiltrates your mind. And environments start with the people in them.

That’s why Step 3 is crucial: Avoid Drama. Most people are drama, plain and simple. For example, before I started the Program, I had a lazy boyfriend, a backstabbing best friend, and a super annoying stepmom. Guess what I had to do before I could achieve my Dreams? Guess! I had to cut them out. Cold turkey. It’s that simple.

We were instructed to make a list of everyone in our lives who was Drama, including people who said negative things about others, who hated their jobs, and who were lazy, cheaters or liars.

I wrote down descriptions of a handful of my coworkers: the blonde woman who cried openly at the Coffeemate station, confessing aloud that coming into the office every day made her want to jump off a building. The man who accidentally sent an all-company email calling his boss a greedy twat, the young admin who quit in the middle of a quarterly meeting after giving an impassioned monologue bout how the company was run by a bunch of sexist old white creeps.

We were instructed to cut all of these people out of our lives immediately. They acted as physical roadblocks to our Wildest Dreams.

Seriously, right now. Take out your cell phones and delete their numbers. Trust me!

A few people cried while completing the task. I didn't have any of my co-worker's phone numbers, but I pretended to participate as to not draw attention to myself, pressing random buttons on my phone and scrunching up my face like I was having a hard time with it.

Things got tricky at Step 4: Seek Companionship.

It takes a village to raise a child, right? And your Dreams are your children, so they can’t be built by you alone.

This seemed to directly contradict Step 3, Avoid Drama. I raised my hand and asked how we were supposed to find a companion when we cut everyone out of our life in Step 3.

Great question. You’d be surprised how many people ask that after realizing that literally everyone in their life is poison drama. The best thing to do is get a pet! Pets aren’t drama and they provide great companionship.

I picked up some supplies on the bus ride home from the Program. It was pretty easy to lure the stray cat inside with a bowl of milk, and as I watched him lap it up greedily, I realized Coach was right. I instantly felt better. Needed.

I named him Frank because his insistent meowing reminded me of Frank Sinatra’s croon. Frank quickly became my beacon of light. My sole companion who definitely wasn’t drama, who sometimes got infested with fleas so severely that I’d wake up with a constellation of bites on my arms and legs.

The first half of my day flies by. I’m working diligently to get the approved passages typed up so that I can double-check my work before saving it on the correct drive, clearly marked with the date and subject of the passage.

How Energy Affects Water_10.21.19

Rocks and Minerals_10.22.19

What Do Fossils Tell Us About History?_ 10.28.19

My favorite is the section about fossils. I picture the fourth-grade students across Utah high-fiving when they see what they have the pleasure of learning in class today.

Fossils, neat!

Maybe the class will take a field trip to an archaeological site and one student will be so inspired that she’ll decide right then and there that she wants to dedicate her life to discovering fossils around the world, and it will have all started with a simple passage in a science textbook. A passage that I had the honor of typing up. HERE, more clarity?

Decker, my office?

It’s 11:41 am. My boss never calls me into his office, and right away I have a good feeling about this. After all those early mornings, triple-checked passages, and friendly smiles, my time has finally arrived. This is the start of the rest of my life, on this ordinary Tuesday.

I’ll buy Frank a bag of catnip to celebrate. I'll need to do some research to find a Primary Care Physician. Maybe my boss will have a recommendation. I’ll have to remember to ask him.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

I’ll cut right to the chase. There's been a mixup between Mcnally and JP Publishing House. Turns out the 4th-grade science textbooks haven’t been updated in two years. Two freaking years, can you believe it? All those passages you typed up? They’ve been sitting on the desk of some lady who went on maternity leave in 2017 and never came back! And, get this, they only caught it because the pile of papers on this lady’s desk got so high that it toppled over, passages of science chapters flying everywhere! When JP found out he was furious. Totally furious.

I can see his mouth moving, but I’m having a hard time hearing the words. His voice sounds like it's reaching my ears from the other end of a long tunnel.

Personally, I can’t believe they’ve been paying our invoices this whole time. If I pulled something like that? Carter would have me fired like that!

He snaps so loudly that I jump.

That’s money in the toilet for them, straight in the toilet. They’re going to beg me for a refund and I’m going to say no can do, ol’ boys. We’ve still had to pay your wage, Decker, even if they haven’t been updating those textbooks all this time. Not our problem.

I grip either side of the chair and repeat the Five Steps to myself: take responsibility, set goals, avoid drama, seek companionship, visualize; but I keep getting stuck on Step One.

Your thoughts create your circumstances. It’s your fault.

It’s your fault.

You’ve been a real peach, Decky boy, but we don’t have anything for you to do around here anymore. Might be a good thing, right? Typing up the same passages every day for the past two years had to get dull. I’m surprised you haven't quit by now. Guy before you? Only lasted three months. Said the job made him want to kill himself. Used those exact words: this job makes me want to off myself! But a bright fella like you, spending all day typing up canned passages for a buncha Mormon kids? Nothing against the Mormans, I love ‘em, but my point is this job had to be pretty depressing, right? Anyhow, you’re good through today. We’ll pay you for your full eight hours. Just be sure to drop off your badge before you leave.

It’s dark outside when I exit the office for the final time. I don't have a jacket or a hat, so I’m shivering violently when Barb pulls up to the bus stop.

Happy evening to you!

I usually respond with, And to you! It’s a part of our ritual since Barb is much more chipper on the ride home, but today I ignore her. I take a seat at the back of the bus, pressing my forehead to the window.

Numbers flood my mind: the monthly payment for the Five Step Program, my medical bills, cat food and human food rent and my maxed-out credit card. Every number is a physical weight, a brick laid on top of my body, and nothing adds up against the $26.53 I have left in my bank account. My mind keeps screaming: Take accountability, this is your fault. And I keep asking, what did I do to attract this?

I hear Frank clawing at the door from inside as I approach the apartment. I unlock the door and there he is, all the hair on his back standing straight up. I reach down to pat the top of his head and he skitters away, hissing.

At the end of Program, Coach said we were her family now.

And family looks out for each other, right? So if you ever need anything, if you're stuck on a Step, or if you just need a non-drama perspective, email me!

I boot up my laptop, tapping my foot on the linoleum floor as the screen loads. Frank is back at the door, clawing and meowing with a desperation I feel. His scratch marks look like a pattern in the paint.

Frank, shhhhh, please, calm down.

I’m holding back tears as I email Coach to explain what happened, recounting how I've followed all of the Steps precisely for the last five months, not skipping a single day. I even attach a sweet photo of Frank as proof: Seek Companionship. I tell her how useless I feel, how desperate, and I end it by asking for advice. Where did I go wrong? And what should I do now?

To my delight, I hear the incoming email ding just a minute later. I exhale. Things will be OK.

Hello (insert client name here),
See the attached for my consulting rates, starting at $125 for a dedicated 60-minute Reboot Session.
In Power,
Coach

Frank lets out a screech so long and loud that it sounds like a child crying. I am crying, too, as I sweep my laptop to the ground without thinking through how I’ll replace it if it breaks. It lands with a crash and Frank’s head whips around to me. For a moment, we lock eyes.

I walk over to the front door so that I’m straddling his little body between my legs. I look down at the gray stripe running along his bony spine and lean down to stroke it, tears dripping from my chin onto his matted fur. He tenses up, lets out a half-hearted hiss.

I unlock the door, open it just a crack. He squeezes himself through the opening and darts outside. It only takes a few seconds before he’s out of my sight entirely, slinking into the night.

_____

Cheers, my dears, and as always thanks for reading. I’ve been pondering the universality of finding purpose lately and would love to hear any/all thoughts you have on the subject. I plan to spend this weekend packing up for a long upcoming trip and trying out a Tsukemen spot in my neighborhood. I hope you get to sleep in and eat something good!

Perhaps You Should… Go to a Cute Little Gift Exchange

If you’re located in / around NYC, this holiday gift exchange sounds quite cute. I’m a sucker for small, curated events with strangers. If you are, too, here are some other options to discover goings-on around town: coolstuff.nyc is a weekly newsletter that delivers exactly what the name says. Hotsingles.nyc is another newsletter that now has a weekly classified section, a good spot to find out about interesting events, small plays, meet-ups, etc. The Moth is a live storytelling event that happens in every city and is always a good time. Sofar Sounds, also all over the country, are cool, pop-up concerts that are intimate and a great place to discover up-and-coming artists.

Bonus Content (The Cutest)

upworthy

A post shared by Upworthy (@upworthy)

Also, the bravery of these girls will go down in history, this is the intersection of beauty and strength, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this man makes me weak, this energy, and the third slide of this is everything.

A Quote From A Book You Should Read:

“And that," put in the Director sententiously, "that is the secret of happiness and virtue—liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny.”

-Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

This newsletter is best served with a side of conversation, so drop your opinions, reflections, and thoughts in the comments below and let’s get to talking.

that's so interesting

Discussion about this post