You wouldn't believe how many people tell me, "I don't fit into corporate America," referring to the culture of time sheets, time clocks and personnel policies governing everything from drug testing and diversity to fire alarms and conflict resolution.

Most people, though, end up doing just that — walking through the doors of small businesses or multibillion-dollar corporations where they follow traditional work conventions and a corporate code of conduct.

But one group of workers really means it about not trying to fit in. Their job? Comedians.

"I remember at the age of 20 feeling very overwhelmed by the infinite gray areas of accomplishment and futility in the occupations I saw around me," says Jerry Seinfeld in the foreword of the book, "I Killed: True Stories of the Road from America's Top Comics." There was nothing gray about being a standup comedian, he says: "It's a swimming-with-your-knife-in-your-teeth kind of job."

Comedian Margaret Cho said she has always been an outsider. "I was always a bit too loud, a bit too awkward, a bit too fat, a bit too clumsy." she said in an interview on "Talk of the Nation." "I let go of the idea of being accepted and I think that's what really gave me the ability to be an artist."

Unless it's something you really want, I am not suggesting you become a comedian. It is hard to make it, you work for free a lot and there's no health insurance. And if you think your bosses' looming "What-have-you-done-lately-to-justify-your-existence attitude is rough, consider an entire audience holding that over your head.

As Seinfeld put it, the audience is thinking, " 'why should this one person be talking while the rest of us sit here quietly?' Someone better justify that arrangement real quick or there's going to be trouble."

But like many comedians, you may feel you don't quite fit, especially when it comes to what others expect. One man I know loved tinkering with wires and taking things apart and putting them back together. He grew up in a family where he was expected to be a doctor or lawyer. He wanted to be an electrician. He tried to meet his family's expectations, failed miserably and has a dreary work history.

Whether you're just out of school, or like comedian Bob Newhart, an accountant who switched careers, the point is to figure out where you do fit. Don't expect anyone but you to know.