If it's true that the average worker will hold an average of seven jobs over the course of a lifetime, Ayun Halliday is anything but average. In her brief thirty-something years, Halliday has managed to rack up an impressive array of short lived stints in the paid job market, including life guard, library attendant, costume designer, actress, waitress, artist's model, professional temp, rental stylist, substitute teacher, party counselor, massage therapist, costumed mascot, and mime, to name a few. In this uproarious collection of essays, Halliday displays a work ethic all employers can admire: wearing a leg brace to work after calling in "sick," quitting the same day she starts by claiming her step-brother had been in a bike accident, and faking "vocal nodes" to avoid telemarketing calls. Along the way, she befriends colleagues and bosses who ignore her falling asleep, stealing food and clothing, and feigning skills she does not possess, and gains the respect of her customers for sheer honesty, which includes detailing her feminine hygiene problems and setting male clients straight on her brand of massage: "I'm sorry, I cannot facilitate a sexual release for you!"
Ayun Halliday is the Chief Primatologist of the long running, award-winning East Village Inky zine and author of nine books, including the self-mocking autobiographies No Touch Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late and, most recently, Creative, Not Famous: The Small Potato Manifesto and its interactive companion Creative, Not Famous Activity Book: An Interactive Idea Generator for Small Potatoes & Others Who Want to Get Their Ayuss in Gear. She lives in East Harlem with the playwright Greg Kotis, where she is hard at work on a dystopian novel set in her childhood branch library.