“So.  You were a teacher in the public schools for eight years.  Then you were the Executive Director of a non-profit theater?”

“Yeah.”

“And most recently you spent - what - 18 months working retail in a tobacconist?”

Ouch.  As he listed my resume, it did look like a downward spiral.  He didn’t care that the tobacco retail gig and the facilities manager job for a Lincoln Park massage school were part of a compromise between my wife and I at the time.  I mean, I could explain that she and I decided each to take a year to just be artists while the other worked whatever job he or she could find and then we’d switch.  But this was public radio.  My vast experience with cleaning the glass on the humidors and restocking cigars was probably not going to play big on my hiring prospects.