One of my biggest regrets as a writer is having missed the chance to get a few serious publication credits with a major retailer. My freelance gigs had dried up and I was running low on cash. I felt backed into a corner and took a job as a Loss Prevention Agent for Gap Inc. “Loss Prevention” is corporate shorthand for “store detective”, and I took the job feeling like it was a major setback and a symptom of my failure to hack it as a full-time writer.

Since I was feeling so sorry for myself, I completely missed viewing the experience as a way to get published and rebuild my writing career into a viable concern again. For starters, the anti-shoplifting angles would be great for any retail trade magazine, but I was so out of it that I overlooked an even better chance; submitting retail loss prevention how-to articles to the company-wide newsletter and corporate website.

Who wouldn’t love to have a writing credit for Gap Inc. on a resume aimed at other clients in PR, marketing, and trade magazine publishing? I blew it big-time, and realized it only after leaving the company for a brand new writing opportunity as a staff writer for a music industry daily.

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