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"[The holidays] are not the time to take your sick days. This is actually a really good time to be going to the office. The reality is, you've gots lots of personal stuff to take care of, and the best time to get that stuff done is while you're getting paid for it."

That's a little corporate holiday cheer from Jeffrey Yamaguchi, author of the new anti-business handbook, Working For The Man--showing creative types how to beat the mind-numbing monotony of a dayjob. Besides the book, Yamaguchi runs the friendly artsy-craftsy site, 52 Projects.

Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson's mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
This whole book depends on your highly-tuned sarcastic, wild, and imaginative persona in this book. How did you develop this persona? How did you learn how to write in a voice that is dramatically different from your blogging and personal voice? Any advice for someone looking to inject some humor and attitude into their own writing?

Jeffrey Yamaguchi:

I honestly think it comes from the very dark places about how I feel about the workplace. Continue reading...

I hate that I let things get me down and disgruntled at the workplace. I hate letting it impact me in that way.

We all go through those phases, whether it’s once a day or once a week or just over various stretches of time. I have found that writing humorously about all the usual workplace BS really helps me fight my way through feelings of negativity.

I think when I write about work, it just comes naturally to write in that voice, and the more I push it, the more honest I am, the better it turns out. Sometimes it comes across as bitter, but that’s okay, there’s truth in that bitterness. It all feels very natural.

I think my advice would be to just write it all down, all those thoughts you can’t believe you have about all those ridiculous things you can’t believe  are happening, and be willing to laugh at yourself and recognize your own weaknesses and pathetic part of the equation – if you go that route, you’ll see the funny angles start to edge their way into the story.