SUSAN MATTHEWS

Burger King hired me before the ink was dry on my working papers. You’d be amazed at how many people go through the drive-thru naked. Would you like fries with that? That eye-opening experience launched a lifetime of workplace writing inspiration.

At 17, I learned a new SAT word – nepotism. My father helped me land a clerical position in the Pathology department of the local hospital where he worked in administration. One task involved filing morgue photos of the deceased, some quite disturbing. One, I can’t unsee. Mind you, I couldn’t get into R-rated movies at that age. But somehow, I love hospitals.

During college at Temple University in Philadelphia, a classmate hooked me up with a job at Pizzeria Uno. The cook’s crack habit led to unusual items ending up in the pizza. But my waitressing skills posed a greater danger. I upped my customer service by quitting.

While checking IDs at a nightclub, management recognized untapped potential and promoted me to “shooter girl.” I wore a black bodysuit, accessorized with a bandolier of shot glasses and a holster on each hip. One held a bottle of 7UP, and the other a bottle of gin. Giddy up! I’d bounce the shot glass, my palm covering the top, on the back of the bent-over patron until it fizzed and they downed it with unquestioning trust in my hand hygiene. The homeless man camped out in my South Street apartment foyer didn’t approve of my hours, and issued nightly safety warnings.

Senior year, angels smiled upon me. A chic businesswoman hired me as a receptionist for her swanky salon, where receiving beauty treatments, free of charge, was a job requirement. Along with a fat paycheck, a weekly bonus came in the form of an undercover FBI investigation and fascinating clientele. I earned a minor in the study of the human condition. I’ll tell you the tales over a fizzy 7UP and gin.

After graduating, I landed a job as an entertainment and features editor at The Catholic Standard and Times, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Six years in, an interview with writer and director M. Night Shyamalan inspired me to resign and explore other forms of writing.

A large pharmaceutical company offered me a lucrative communications role with trips to London and more than double my newspaper salary. Turning it down was a defining moment. My only regret: missing subsidized trips across the pond.  

While I freelanced for The Philadelphia Inquirer, consumer magazines such as Glamour, and marketing agencies, my husband and I started our family. When our youngest turned three, I searched for a side hustle where slippers weren’t acceptable footwear.

QVC, a home shopping network, held an open call for cotton experts with TV experience. I Googled cotton, auditioned against hundreds, and landed a gig selling bed linens and home decor. It would be years before I was asked where I’d gone to textile school. For over a decade, I presented home products live and unscripted, while mining mental gold in a green room filled with entrepreneurs, celebrities, and inventors.

Getting glammed up by the hair and makeup team reminded me of my lucrative salon job, and I decided that building a salon and spa from the ground up would be fun. That’s when I learned my skill set lies in the creative side of founding and marketing, not in managing staff, which sent me straight to the seventh circle of hell. Despite a gift for endurance, I sold the business just before its first anniversary. They say not to throw good money after bad. The same goes for time.

Along the way, I’d filed these experiences under material and began crafting screenplays, personal essays, and later fiction and nonfiction.

When the clergy child sex abuse scandal exploded in Philadelphia in 2011, our daughter and son were in Catholic school. Infuriated that the Archdiocesan leadership, including priests I’d worked with, had been endangering children for generations, I founded the blog “Catholics4Change.” My on-air skills came in handy when local and national TV and radio shows invited me to offer commentary. Fellow advocate Kathy Kane and I continue to host the blog and Facebook group, providing news and a platform for parents, survivors of clergy sex abuse, and community members.

College tours with my daughter reignited a “Dead Poets Society” teaching fantasy that Temple University allowed me to fulfill as an adjunct instructor in their Department of Communications. I made my favorite college memories while teaching.

Not wanting to wait until retirement to enjoy warm weather and beaches, my husband and I moved our home base from the Philadelphia suburbs to Charleston, SC in 2015.

Life continues to hand-deliver content while the muse gifts me with creative inspiration. And, I fight the good fight, battling what Steven Pressfield calls “the resistance.” Tama and Bowie, my tuxedo and tabby rescue cats, seemingly work for the resistance as they try to sit on my keyboard as I revise my debut speculative fiction novel.