About The Ginger Bread Man

The Ginger Bread Man is the story of a young man who simply gets up and walks away from his office job. I think anyone who spends eight hours a day in a cubicle has contemplated just walking away at one time or another. Jacob never returns to the office. Instead he meets a baker who takes him on as an apprentice. Through baking Jacob learns about himself and the world around him.

During the time I was writing the Ginger Bread Man, I worked as an instructional designer in a cubicle not unlike the one Jacob ran away from that day. I didn’t have his courage to simply run away, but I was able to live vicariously through him. In many ways the conversations between Jacob and the Baker represented my own internal dialogs.

In the end I discovered two aspects of “career” were most important to me: doing something creative and doing a job that made a difference in people’s lives. For me, part of the allure of baking is that it’s a job that’s easy to explain and has a concrete impact on society. A baker creates bread, cookies and cakes. People buy those foods to eat.

Since publishing the Ginger Bread Man I’ve taken advantage of an opportunity to work as a freelance designer rather than for one company. The variety of projects is much better and there’s a lot more time to write when you make your own hours. It’s even gotten a little easier to explain what I do to other people. Even though I’m still an instructional designer by trade, I take the Baker’s lessons to heart.

But sometimes I still get the urge to simply bake a loaf of bread.