I work a late shift, and am often leaving the office around 7pm, trudging up the hill to Union Station, or getting in a good city mile going the other direction to the New York Avenue Metro station and pretending that I\u2019m healthier for the hike.<\/p>\n
Either way, I always see a slew of the city\u2019s homeless.\u00a0 But, at the end of the day, begging is over and accounting has begun.\u00a0 I watch them \u2013 clean and crazy alike \u2013 sifting through wads of bills and stacking piles of coins.\u00a0 The one homeless guy I\u2019ve spoken to more than most girlfriends, since I\u2019ve passed him twice a day every day for eight years, once told me that he expects to make an average of $150 a day during the summer, and sometimes more in the winter.\u00a0 Come December, he claims to be able to bank on $200 a day.\u00a0 Which, considering it\u2019s untaxed, undeclared cash, is more than I make.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I told him, well, it\u2019s the hours that suck.\u00a0 Ha-ha, right?\u00a0 He shook his head.\u00a0 Start in the morning, call it quits around six or seven.\u00a0 Go longer if you want\u2026but with over a hundred bucks in hand by the end of the evening rush hour, why bother?\u00a0 \u201cPushing into the late night crowd is greedy,\u201d he told me, \u201cbesides, I have to get home!\u201d<\/p>\n
I think it was a bunch of kids from Georgetown who, for a sociology class, spent a weekend on the streets.\u00a0 Clean cut college kids on the streets of DC from Friday night through Sunday.\u00a0 And each one of them walked away with about 0.\u00a0 (And got in trouble for the fraud once the results were published.)<\/p>\n
As a publisher, there\u2019s no doubt in my mind that the current market to focus on is the as yet untapped Homeless Dollar.\u00a0 These folks have a sizable, untraceable income and, with all that down time beside escalators and parks and street corners, lots of time to enjoy a good novel.<\/p>\n
To that end, I\u2019m going to develop a flyer for the homeless.\u00a0 When next I suffer the endless, daily barrage of people with better shoes than mine begging for change, I\u2019m going to hand them a flyer with pertinent sales information and an offer to pick up any of my titles at a 50% cash discount.<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t yet worked out a plan to deliver the books to them.\u00a0 If they have an address, then that\u2019s great.\u00a0 No problem.\u00a0 Otherwise, maybe I could sell books through the homeless shelter on consignment.\u00a0 I\u2019ll select a few shelters in the area and, on the flyer, give the various locations where the titles are available.\u00a0 Even if I give the homeless shelter 20% of my half price charge, I\u2019d still be better off than when Amazon buys a copy from my distributor.\u00a0 Plus, the 70% loss can be written off as a donation.<\/p>\n
Not yet a perfect strategy\u2026 But one I\u2019ll definitely be working on.\u00a0 One thing is for sure \u2013 the only people with disposable income these days are the homeless street people.\u00a0 How many of you can sit around at 6pm every day counting wads of bills? A day full of free sodas from McDonalds, and packed lunches from caring commuters, and gifts come Christmas time.\u00a0 The guy who told me his average take gets gifts from the regular commuters every year.\u00a0 A new boombox, classy shoes, a winter coat\u2026<\/p>\n
In fact\u2026what the fuck am I doing working these no good jobs?\u00a0 I could be on the streets, making more money, and taking expensive gifts from strangers.\u00a0 And, unlike at these normal wage slave jobs, I wouldn\u2019t have to suck cock or get fisted!\u00a0 I could have it all just because I spent the day sitting on a bucket repeating a few key phrases over and over again, in between breaks for Mad Dog and reefer.<\/p>\n
I certainly don\u2019t get Mad Dog and reefer breaks at my wage slave job.\u00a0 The only choice for me is ultra-processed Flavia coffee crystals and Lipton tea that was probably harvested while Thomas Lipton was still alive.<\/p>\n
And before you tell me that it\u2019s crazy and dangerous on the streets, I want you to spend a day in my office\u2026 I don\u2019t think any of us would flinch if someone got into a running gun battle with Keanu Reeves out there on the floor.<\/p>\n
There are two social groups in our office.\u00a0 The people on The Floor, and the people in The Offices.\u00a0 It\u2019s like the 1960 George Pal version of The Time Machine<\/span>.\u00a0 The people on The Floor are the Eloi, and we office-dwellers are the Morlocks.\u00a0 Except the roles are reversed.\u00a0 The Eloi are the ravenous maniacs, clawing around on the carpet, waiting for their $90 daily Chinese lunch order to come in.\u00a0 They\u2019re the fundamentalists, the conspiracy nuts, the screamers and ravers.\u00a0 During 9\/11, when we were told to evacuate the building, the office people all fled while the floor people linked hands and prayed to Jesus Poltergeist II<\/span> cult style.\u00a0 Scary dead-faced old man laughing as the stone is pulled over their makeshift tomb\u2026<\/p>\n The office-dwelling Morlocks are all sitting in the dark, vaguely clueless about the intimate details out on the floor, and accompanied by the sputtering sound of ancient machines.\u00a0 In this case, the grumbling, clicking, clanking air conditioning vents that blow frantically, day and night, all year around into our tiny, dark offices.\u00a0 Long ago, most of the lightbulbs were removed, so the only lighting is what we have on our desks.<\/p>\n Each office has two people.\u00a0 A strict black-white policy.\u00a0 One white person, and one minority of any flavor.\u00a0 This is often cited as an HR policy, except HR is clueless that it exists.\u00a0 The idea is to combat the idea that the white people in the office are privileged.\u00a0 It\u2019s kind of like bussing, I suppose.\u00a0 The desegregation of the offices.\u00a0 Except no white people work on The Floor.\u00a0 Nor will we ever.\u00a0 Thank god!<\/p>\n Anyway, here\u2019s what I\u2019m thinking for the Homeless Flyer:<\/p>\n Bored begging for pennies?\u00a0 Help pass the time between commuter shifts with one of our spectacular titles!<\/p>\n Or something like that.\u00a0 And I could include blurbs from homeless people:<\/p>\n A fantastic read!\u00a0 I could barely put it down in time to work the lunch crowd outside Julia\u2019s on 14th and K!<\/p>\n Enthralling!\u00a0 Enchanting!\u00a0 A tour de force! Would you like to buy an umbrella?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I work a late shift, and am often leaving the office around 7pm, trudging up the hill to Union Station, or getting in a good city mile going the other direction to the New York Avenue Metro station and pretending …<\/p>\n