Boy have I got a treat for you today.

Especially if you’re weighing up your job and you’re thinking of making a change.

Before I quit my banking job in 2021, I spent months mulling, researching, plotting and planning.  

Along the way, I came across a few people who’d already thought long & hard about similar questions on the 9 to 5, the role of work and freedom.

One of those people was writer-comedian and publisher Rob Wringham. 

Rob hasn't just successfully escaped an office job.  He's created a whole movement out of it.

A few weeks ago, I dropped Rob a cheeky email, asking if he’d be up for being interviewed.

I’m always on the hunt for new ideas and perspectives, particularly from people who've walked the walk and not just talked the talk.

Which is why I’m chuffed that Rob said yes.

So without further ado, here’s part 1 of our interview:

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Tom:  Could you tell us who you are and how you found your way into escapology?

Rob:  Well, I made it up. The whole thing is my own idea. I do have an origin story though: I was working in a dispiriting office job by day while moonlighting as a comedian. Comedy introduced me to people who really didn’t give a shit, didn’t have career plans or worry about what the world thought of them. They were just having a great time. To me, they had a lot of integrity. Their lives were a great romance and it struck me as immediately accessible as a lifestyle if you wanted it. So that loosened the grip I had on so-called reality, I suppose. 

Then, because I was trying to come up with a performance style of my own, I read some library books about stage magic. My favourite magician became Houdini, the great escapologist, and I started to see his craft and performance as a metaphor for the rest of us. He came to prominence at a time when erstwhile American farmhands were having to come to terms with centralised administration and industrialised production for the first time, so I think there was a good reason for his mass appeal beyond simple spectacle.

Tom:  How do you define “the good life”?

Rob:  People need to define their own idea of the good life. In my books I encourage people to conduct a “life audit” to work out what’s really important to them and where they focus their efforts. My personal good life involves creative work, towards which I feel pride instead of alienation. The market doesn’t generally cater for that vision unless you make it yourself and you’re willing to take the rough with the smooth on that journey. I also want to have as little on my plate as possible, to take each day as it comes without fretting about deadlines or where the money’s coming from.

That’s something I heard in an interview with Alfred Hitchcock recently: he was asked what makes a good life and he said, with great relish, “to have nothing on your plate.” I don’t think he meant having literally nothing to do, but a manageable number of worthwhile projects with as few complicated extraneous elements as possible.

Tom:  Why do so many people feel trapped by their jobs but hesitate to do anything about it?

Rob:  It’s terrifying to leave a job with nothing to go into. Remember Joey on Friends and “the fear” and how it got Rachel into trouble? It’s a big deal to leave a job. As well as the financial and practical ramifications, it just isn’t done. If you want to walk away, all of culture will be against you. There’s no help for it, no social impetus. Most people don’t even know it’s possible, have never even thought such a thing. 

The very suggestion is even offensive to some people because there’s a deep idea in Western culture that we find freedom through work, not from work. The feeling of being trapped is real though and is perfectly rational. You feel trapped at your desk because you are trapped.

Tom:  What advice do you have for anyone stuck behind their desk, fed up, banging their fists against their keyboard and longing to escape from their job? 

Rob:  I’ve written two books on the subject and I’m not keen to summarise them, but basically you can try to survive the day job with your spirit intact (read The Good Life for Wage Slaves) or escape it with your integrity intact and a sense of adventure instead (read I’m Out). You can’t generally have both. If you have both, you probably don’t need to escape.

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That’s enough for today.

Keep your eyes peeled for part 2 of the interview tomorrow.