Free I’m Special by Ryan O’Connell Page A

forever.” I’m talking about a fear of working that leaves you utterly paralyzed. That’s what I had. After spending my whole life tricking people into thinking I was more functional than I was, I worried that having a job would undo it all. I had gotten my first taste of having my disabilities exposed when I interned at Interview ,but the stakes are much lower when you aren’t getting paid. Now that I was actually being compensated, I had to prove that I deserved to be there, which is a hard thing to do when you don’t exactly believe it yourself. After a few days of working, I was convinced my boss would realize I was an impostor with no real skills and fire me.
    If my first job hadn’t been so unconventional, perhaps that’s what would’ve happened. When I started my job as a writer and editor at a New York media start-up called Thought Catalog , I was the first salaried employee. We had no office and no staff. I worked from home in my pajamas, masturbated to porn on the clock, and spent my lunch break watching TV and eating leftovers from the fridge. I was shocked that a job like this was possible, even though they’re not so uncommon anymore. My brother, sister, and I have never worked in an office before. Our jobs all revolve around the Internet and give us the option to work remotely. My parents are mystified by what we do for a living. Professions like “blogger,” “porn website creator,” and “online curriculum builder” barely existed ten years ago, let alone when they graduated from college. But if the ideal hope for your children is to have them surpass you in success, my parents are getting their wish fulfilled. My brother sold his website at twenty-eight and went into semiretirement the same year my father did. Things like this are possible now. The Internet has enabled people to achieve success quickly. With the traditional pathways muddled, anyone with a Wi-Fi connection and a great idea can rise to the top. There are no rules. We’re making it up as we go along.
    I’m still not exactly sure how I got a job writing about whatever I wanted at the age of twenty-four, but having money probably helped. The most valuable thing my settlement bought me was the time to write and build a portfolio. If you squint hard enough at people in their twenties who have amazing careers, you’ll usually see a trust fund check getting cashed behind them. I don’t like to admit it, especially because I didn’t grow up with money and it often makes me feel like a traitor to my own class, but it’s a fact you can’t ignore. I got my dream job because I didn’t have to take any nightmare ones.
    Being shameless also helped me get to where I wanted to be. Right when I entered the world of unemployment, I started e-mailing every writer and editor in town, asking them how they got to where they were. I sent pitches to anyone who would read them. I wrote every single day, which was a luxury of someone who didn’t have to work retail or at a restaurant, and worked on developing my voice until something stuck. Then, after three months of blind panic and working furiously, things began to happen. I started submitting pieces to Thought Catalog and they began to receive lots of traffic. By January—my one-year anniversary from my college graduation—I was given a full-time position.
    For the first six months of my being employed, I was so euphoric it felt like I was on drugs. (Sometimes I actually was on drugs, but we’ll get to my Requiem for a Dream moment later.) I wanted to soak everything up and scream nonsense corporate jargon like, “WHERE ARE THE ACTION ITEMS? CAN WE CIRCLE BACK, BOB?” and hand out business cards to everyone I met on the street. Even if it turns out to be dreadful, your first adult job always gives you a perverse thrill. You’re thrust into this foreign environment where you have to learn a whole