Jack Of(f) All Trades
by Ferdinand Folk
My grandfather used to say that whatever you do in life, you do it with pride.
He meant work.
Real work.
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The kind that leaves residue on your hands.
The kind modern people like to romanticize but rarely want to perform.
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I come from a family built almost entirely on labor.
Truckers. Contractors. Mechanics. Restaurant people.
Men who measured themselves through endurance more than expression.
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My grandfather owned a restaurant and cattle auction house.
Old-school. Hard-working. The kind of man who believed usefulness revealed character faster than personality ever could.
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And maybe that’s why I never developed embarrassment around labor.
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I’ve never been afraid of a toilet brush.
Never believed I was above a task.
Never understood people who confuse visibility with value.
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Because in the same week I might:
• produce a show
• negotiate talent
• write essays
• run a venue
• clean a hotel bathroom
• remake a bed
• carry towels across a clothing-optional resort in the desert
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Which, if we’re being honest,
is technically how the title happened.
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Jack Off All Trades
Not because I’m literally jacking anyone off.
Though gay hospitality does occasionally feel one logistical inconvenience away from that becoming a premium service.
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But because I spend part of my life servicing rooms occupied by every imaginable variation of man.
Executives. Contractors. Retirees. Trust-fund couples. Lonely men. Married men. Men pretending not to be lonely.
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And once everyone’s naked, hierarchy starts collapsing faster than expected.
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The executive looks the same as the electrician.
The contractor looks the same as the retired investor.
Everyone barefoot.
Everyone carrying the same five insecurities in slightly different packaging.
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Eventually the nudity disappears.
Not literally.
Unfortunately.
But contextually.
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A naked man asking for extra towels eventually feels no different than a businessman asking for oat milk at a Marriott.
Everyone becomes logistics eventually.
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The funny part is—I’m aware of the cliché.
Painfully aware.
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Because in certain gay social circles, there’s an unspoken hierarchy to everything.
Who owns property.
Who hosts.
Who performs success.
Who serves it.
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And somewhere near the bottom of that ecosystem sits the career housekeeper at a clothing-optional resort.
Everyone knows it.
No one says it out loud because these environments survive almost entirely on pretending not to notice obvious things.
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So when guests ask what I do, I usually clarify quickly.
“No, this isn’t my career.”
Not out of shame.
At least I don’t think so.
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More because I understand what box people immediately place you in once they have incomplete information.
And modern social life runs almost entirely on incomplete information.
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But the strange part is—
I choose it.
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Knowingly.
Deliberately.
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Because for a few hours a day, I actually like existing there.
Inside the simplicity of task-oriented work.
Towels. Sheets. Coffee. Toiletries. Logistics.
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No branding.
No posturing.
No intellectual performance.
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Just usefulness.
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And after enough years around entertainment, nightlife, social climbing, branding exercises disguised as personalities, and men introducing themselves exclusively through what they own—
usefulness starts to feel holy.
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And yet—
I’m not immune to hierarchy either.
That’s the uncomfortable part.
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When I look back at the men I’ve seriously dated, there’s a pattern.
Owners.
General managers.
Men attached to establishments, venues, reputations.
Men with visible positions.
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I don’t think I realized I was doing it at first.
Or maybe I did and dressed it up as “standards.”
Which sounds better than what it probably is.
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Because every so often, someone genuinely kind pursues me—
an usher at a show, an actor waiting for his break, someone without the architecture of status surrounding him—
and I hesitate.
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Not because he lacks value.
But because somewhere internally, I’ve already categorized him.
Quietly.
Instantly.
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And I hate that I do that.
Mostly because it reveals how deeply class performance infects all of us, even the people pretending to stand outside of it.
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Especially in gay culture.
Where status is rarely spoken directly, but constantly negotiated.
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Who owns.
Who hosts.
Who gets invited.
Who is “connected.”
Who is still trying to become something.
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These social worlds run on this quietly.
Like Hollywood with better landscaping and earlier dinner reservations.
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So maybe working these jobs isn’t just about grounding.
Maybe it’s confrontation.
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A way of forcing myself to stay physically close to the kinds of labor and people my own psychology occasionally tries to rank.
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Because self-awareness means very little if it never inconveniences you.
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America, at its best, was never built on specialization alone.
It was built on adaptability.
Men who could repair engines, pour concrete, sell cattle, fix plumbing, work double shifts, and still show up the next morning.
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Now everyone wants identity through profession.
One title. One lane. One personal brand polished to exhaustion.
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But putting all your worth into one thing feels dangerous to me.
Fragile, even.
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A man should know how to move between rooms.
The backstage hallway.
The boardroom.
The loading dock.
The breakfast shift.
The bar.
The bathroom.
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Because the higher someone rises, the more suspicious I become if they’ve forgotten how the floor gets cleaned.
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And maybe that’s the real reason I keep doing this.
Not for money.
Not even entirely for grounding.
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But because usefulness keeps ego from hardening into delusion.
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At the end of the day, everyone leaves something behind.
Towels on the floor.
Wrinkles in the sheets.
Half-drunk cocktails.
Little evidences of having existed somewhere briefly.
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And someone still has to clean the room.
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That person has always interested me more than the person staying in it.
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Maybe because the older I get, the less impressed I become by performance without usefulness attached to it.
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Anyone can curate a life.
Very few people can maintain one.
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And somewhere between entertainment, hospitality, labor, hierarchy, naked men asking for extra towels, and my grandfather’s voice still echoing somewhere in the background—
I realized I never wanted success to make me useless.
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A jack of all trades is a master of none—
but oftentimes better than a master of one.
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Or in my case—
just Jack Off All Trades.
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Dirty work never scares me.