Good Old Bartleby

Scrivener:  A professional writer; one whose occupation is to draw contracts or prepare writings.  

A friend asked me if I had read the short story "Bartleby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville.  The character, a valued employee of a law firm, suddenly stops doing his assigned work, saying only: "I prefer not to."  He will not be swayed, eventually dying in prison.

The question - I assume there's a reason I was asked but didn't pause long enough to find out what it might be - triggered a wide-ranging set of related thoughts.  Such as: 

When people here in Vacation City ask me what I do or what I did for a living I usually say: "I sold equipment used in process control and predictive maintenance."  This is mostly true and I know enough about these two areas to fill in the blanks if I'm pressed further, which I rarely am.  From time to time I've said I was a consultant because I enjoy the looks of confusion and awe on people's faces.  But because I'm often talking to people who I know I'll see again or who may know SuperK I keep my oral creative writing under wraps.

In The Old City I tell people I'm from Vacation City and that I'm either an illustrator or an animator.  I have no idea what either of those things are or if they even exist.  I've thought about being an Event Planner but I could see some starstruck individual pursuing that line of thought, digging uncomfortably deeper,  even though, in such an eventuality, I've decided to say that I'm a supervisor, that I have people who do the actual illustrating or animating or even planning for me.  So far nobody has touched it with a ten foot pole.  I enjoy the feeling of power that comes with being a Vacation City illustrator supervisor.

I have always wanted to say that I'm a chiropodist but haven't gone there yet.  I think I should try "scrivener" someday.

There's a famous Seinfeld episode where Jerry runs into a guy - the fastest kid in their high school - that he beat in a race long ago by getting away with a false start.  Dubious, the kid repeatedly asks Jerry for a rematch, to which he replies: "I choose not to run."  Some schools of thought imagine this as a reference to Bartleby, some to a bastardization of Calvin Coolidge saying: "I do not choose to run for President in 1928."

I have read the story but long, long ago.  Sounds like it's due for a re-reading.