Shashi Bhat on the worst office job ever

Image | ShashiBhat-FamilyTookShape-TNC-620

Caption: Shashi Bhat has been shortlisted for the Journey Prize and the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. The Family Took Shape is her debut novel. (Twitter)

Audio | The Next Chapter : Day Job: Shashi Bhat

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Shashi Bhat is the author of The Family Took Shape(external link), and was a finalist for the 2010 Writers' Trust of Canada's RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. Below, she shares the high school job experience that turned her off 9-to-5 jobs forever.
When I was in high school, I interned at my mom's computer leasing company. Basically what I did, every day from 9 to 5, was remove staples. Just hours on end, removing staples. I was removing the staples from documents they wanted to scan, and I kept all the staples I removed, so over the hours and days they started to accumulate on a pile on my desk. It was terrible, but people would walk by and make jokes about how I could melt them down and make them into a car.
From that experience, I acquired a hatred for the 9-to-5 job. I don't think I've worked a 9-to-5 job since then. I really recommend being a university professor to anyone who has trouble with that lifestyle, although I do imagine a lot of 9-to-5 jobs are not as terrible as removing staples.
Shashi Bhat's comments have been edited and condensed.