I Must Get To The Sales Too Late To See These People

Confessions of a Used-Book Salesman.

One of the things that interested me about this piece was it's tone--confessional, of course, as if the author is exposing something negative about himself. That is the case with many personal essays. I must say, that it is the case in some that I've written.

Why do we feel a need to expose our flaws? What's more, in many cases (such as this one) the flaws aren't all that flaw-like. Come on. He traffics in used books, not drugs or prostitutes.

I wondered about how this could have been rewritten in a joyful way. Hey, I've got this great device that helps me to do my job faster and without having to have a lot of knowledge about what I do!

I guess that would be an advertisement rather than an essay.