Bukowski Quits at the Post Office | Mickey Z.

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Photo credit: Mickey Z.

Mickey Z. -- World News Trust

April 8, 2014

“It began as a mistake.”

With that audacious opening line did Charles Bukowski launch his first novel, Post Office (1971). Others had challenged the vaunted American work ethic before… but none with the style, vengeance, and experience of the man they called Hank.

In the United States, the topic of work infiltrates most aspects of our life. Consider the most common question we’re asked from the time we’re old enough to understand it: What are you going to be when you grow up?

The unspoken assumption in that question, of course, is that the child or teen on the receiving end is nothing now… but they will be something when they spend 8-10 hours a day in a cubicle crunching numbers under artificial light to the sound of Muzak.

Breaking free from this cookie-cutter formula has become increasingly difficult as one’s perceived worth is usually synonymous with one’s material earning power and material consumption.

Bukowski unapologetically mocked and deconstructed this American edifice, writing in Post Office: “Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; it takes a wise man to make it without working.”

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