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throwawayoldie07/31/20256 repliesview on HN

Other examples: Baruch Spinoza, lensmaker by day, philosopher by night. Philip Glass: moving man, plumber, cab driver, and avant-garde composer. E. E. "Doc" Smith: food engineer and science fiction writer. Franz Kafka: administrator in an insurance company, and writer of history's weirdest books. Wallace Stevens: insurance company executive and poet. William Carlos Williams: doctor and poet. And these are just off the top of my head.


Replies

namanyayg07/31/2025

This is messing with my head. I love Spinoza and Kafka and couldn't imagine them as anything else but being full-time thinkers and writers.

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jddj07/31/2025

Bukowski: pickle factory for a while then 13ish years at the united states postal service

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Apocryphon07/31/2025

Anthony Trollope worked at the post office, Andy Weir was a programmer until he hit it big with The Martian.

rikroots08/01/2025

Wilfred Owen: soldier and poet (whose poetry was ignored/neglected until the 1960s)

cma07/31/2025

Robert Frost was an insurance guy or something

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Awesomedonut08/03/2025

TIL Kafka worked in insurance... wild!