Excerpts From the Fat, Forty and Fired...

Fat, Forty, and Fired: One Man's Frank, Funny, and Inspiring Account of Losing His Job and Finding His Life

Difficult Moments

Discovering that he had unwittingly left his four-year-old, Harry, alone at the preschool "Good-bye Window" his first time dropping him off, Marsh returns to the school:

As I approached the window I could see there were tears running down Harry's cheeks.

"Daddy, I waited. Where were you?" he asked in a trembling, bewildered voice.

I can't actually find the words to describe how I felt. I hated myself and loved him with equal passion. How could I be such a useless idiot? I only had to do the school run, something Kate managed every day, and I'd completely screwed it up. I imagined Harry being interviewed later in life . . . "I decided to turn to violent crime after my father left me weeping in front of my classmates so he could get himself
a coffee . . ."

This is so hard, I thought as I drove home. Little lunch, Good-bye Windows, what other unknown obstacles were out there waiting to trip me up?

As he considers taking a year off

I couldn't help thinking it was time to take the plunge and take a break from the corporate world. You are a long time dead, and I'd always doubted that sitting in an office was the sum of all the world has to offer. Besides, I'd never regretted any previous risk I had taken, be it doing stand-up comedy, moving to Australia, studying theology, or going for baby number three, which turned out to be twins. In fact, far from being the "silly" bits of my life, these risks had invariably been the things that made me feel alive and supplied me with the memories I most cherished. Perhaps a year off the treadmill was precisely what I, and my family, needed.

A decision not taken lightly

There are no guarantees in life. Fear of the uncertain can, and does, hold millions back from pursuing their dreams. I'm not saying I wasn't scared—I was—just that I didn't want the fear to stop me. I determined I was going to look back at the end of my life and know that at least I had tried a different path—however disastrously it turned out.

A sampling of what he learns

After only a month off I now knew how incredibly irritating it was if anyone called you during the bath-time and bedtime hour that made up the end of each day. It is called arsenic hour, and for good reason. You are tired, the kids are getting cranky and you have an amazing amount of stuff to do in a very short space of time. All it takes is a daughter being difficult during her hair washing or a husband who wants to chat on the phone and the whole delicate system collapses and no one gets to bed until ten o'clock. As any mother knows, this is an absolute disaster because it means that the whole day is given over to childcare with no space left for you to be an independent adult before your own bedtime.

I say this not to be a bleeding-heart, liberal, new-age metrosexual, but because it's true: Most men who have a traditional office career haven't a clue how hard their partners work. I know I certainly didn't. A self-help author I know maintains he always says to any man who comes to him with his "I'm going to take a year off to be with the family" story, "Come back in six months when the novelty has worn off and then we'll talk." I was beginning to see his point. Childrearing is not easier than office work, it is simply different from office work ...

Not that I was complaining. This situation was precisely what I had wanted. If I hadn't taken this year off I would have more than likely worked continuously until after the kids had left home and never actually experienced the family at this feral level. It scared me that so much life had been going on around me that I wasn't even a bit player in—I was simply unconnected to it.

Regarding the need to move to a cheaper, smaller home due to their reduced income

A number of friends were appalled at the fate that was befalling us and were genuinely sympathetic. All I could think was, "It's Clovelly—no problem, another wonderful Sydney beachside suburb...it'll do the children good to share." Kate thought this attitude was simply an obvious case of retrospective justification, given my situation. I prefer to believe it was a brilliant flash of insight and a searing indictment on the professional classes in the developed world. But then again, I still tuck my undershirt into my underpants if she's not watching.

Near the end of his year off, when offered a job

I had made some dramatic improvements in my life—but hadn't yet faced the biggest issue: Work-life balance. I had found that, unlike many men, I could enjoy not working. But on the balance front all I'd really found out was that I was good at juggling life and work when I didn't have any work to juggle. But I knew I had to go back to work soon. The bigger question, therefore, was, could I go back to work and retain the life changes and the attitude I had come to value deeply over the last few months? That seemed to be the biggest challenge of all.

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Contact: Kathy Hilliard, Publicity Director, (800) 851-8923, ext. 7497, khilliard@amuniversal.com

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Fat, Forty, and Fired

Author: Nigel Marsh
ISBN-13: 978-0-7407-6433-2
ISBN-10: 0-7407-6433-0
Format: Hardcover: 6 x 9, 288 pages
Price: $19.95 ($24.95 Canada)