Browsing tag: career

Everyone assumes that as a journalism grad, I must want to be a reporter, and wonders why I’m not pursuing relevant positions.

But I’m not cut out for hardnosed reporting. I want to be a journalist, just not a reporter. I love subbing, editing, layout. I take great joy in untangling a mangled sentence. In writing captions, blurbs, headlines. And if I had more creative and technical bent, I might have gone into design.

My goal in life is not to bring down tobacco corps or expose dirty politicians. Those are noble causes – just not causes close to my heart. I work alongside reporters and have nothing but admiration for what they do (most of the time).

There is more to the field than ambulance chasing. It doesn’t mean I should go straight into PR or marketing, as one friend – a fellow journo, even! – has said to me (I don’t think I’d necessarily enjoy the commercial aspect of marketing, or all the liasing with various parties I’d have to do as a publicist).

Granted, sub-editing has traditionally been reserved for those with more experience. But that’s changing, with the centralisation of subbing operations and shrinking budgets – fellow grads have gone straight into fulltime subs work – and of course, the advent of online, where traditional hierarchies don’t apply so much.

Don’t get me wrong, I get a kick out of writing too. On that side of things, I’d probably want to pursue roles as a community reporter or entertainment writer. But I feel my heart is in online and that it’s a growth industry – which is why although aforementioned friend is pushing me towards a community arts reporting gig that’s up for the taking, I’m not applying.

In fact, I don’t think a lot of my fellow grads even understand online and what opportunities there are. To me, there’s the opportunity to move up faster, probably more money and certainly prestige, and fun bits on the side like graphic design, HTML, and social media. Although I’ve always thought I’d like to try a stint as a print sub – doing layouts and spreads – I am positive that I’d feel very limited back on the print side of things.

For now, I blog here, freelance at my side job, and mostly sub to my heart’s content at work. (I may not have the title or corresponding pay, but that is the job I’m doing nonetheless). It’s an ideal mix – maybe why I’m not getting the itch to write more?

You hear it a lot: Young people just don’t have any patience. They have an entitlement attitude.  You have to work your way up and earn your place.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve been here forever, and surely by now that should be recognised? Then I kick myself and think that I’m glad to have a job.  I’m still a fresh grad with plenty to learn and skills to hone. Sometimes I am irritated that my title and income bracket are still the same although I’m doing work beyond that. And then I remind myself that I have to be patient. Good things take time.

It’s funny how I am making what my mum made 6, 7 years ago as an accountant and now think it’s peanuts.  How fast things change. I’m definitely suffering from that 20-something I want it all and I want it now attitude.

I know that I’ve been proving I can handle more responsibility. I have to make my accomplishments more visible – blow my own horn, learn to schmooze.  I tend to just work quietly and prefer to get on with the job but am trying to be more visible…which given my hours isn’t always easy. As per Revanche’s advice, I’m cultivating rapport with those I work alongside. And I know that most everyone knows how awesome I am – the people around me and just above me, at least.

But I don’t want to end up like this friend of mine, and I may need to jump ship at some point to get ahead. I’ve been keeping one eye on the job market for months. Now one has come up and I’m hesitating. Why? Normally I would be the first to say, what’s the harm in testing the waters? I really don’t know. It’s all familiar – maybe I’m too settled? I like the environment, I like the people I work with. And I’m reluctant to risk giving that up.

However, that’s just not good enough a reason – so I’m biting the bullet. And maybe nothing will come of it. But there’s nothing to lose either way, right?

Among the blogs I read regularly is Ask A Manager – it always has great advice on everything from interviewing to dealing with management and coworkers.

Sometimes though, you just have to feel sorry for the people who write in.

I started a job at $10 an hour. I took the job because I needed income, and wasn’t planning to stay for very long. I liked it, because it was a 10 minute drive to work, and steady pay. I was offered another job that would be $14 an hour, but it was a 30 minute drive. I offered the place I was working a chance to keep me on by meeting the offer, because I liked the office and the short drive….

I asked my boss about the raise and was told it might be two months now… and to ask again in a couple days. I asked again in a couple days and I’ve been told that the company can’t afford it right now. I’d just have to stay at $12 an hour.

One of my friends is currently in a similar situation. She doesn’t enjoy her job, and although she has a lot of work experience – some of it in this field – she’s only just become qualified in her current industry and is making a lot less than what she’s used to. The work environment isn’t the best, and although her boss has indicated good things ahead, he hasn’t come through and is starting to get a bit Jekyll and Hyde on her. What really hurts is that she put her faith in him and turned down a much-better paying opportunity (albeit in another city) that she would most likely have gotten.

It’s just a reminder that no one else has put your best interests at heart. YOU have to put yourself first, no ifs or buts.

Sometimes, things take a long time to come to fruition. And sometimes, they just move ridiculously fast…

T finished up with landscaping and the likely dead end father/son business and has returned to what he was doing before.

It’s now been well over a year since he was laid off from a good job, which seemed to be the path toward getting qualified and good earning potential in the trades. Since then he’s dabbled in a few things, and although he still doesn’t have a long-term plan, he’s just happy to be doing something that utilises his skills. Redundancy was a big blow for both of us – he was the main income earner, I was still studying – and because fabrication was something he kind of fell into, he’s floundered a bit since then.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s not a leech and he’s not lazy. It’s been embarrassing for him to come home on weeks when he’s hardly made enough to cover work expenses like gas and lunches. He’s just as glad as I am that he should now be able to pay the bills. Sure, this is going to mean spending more on gas and food (it’s not as far as his old job, but he’ll be driving our car instead of a work truck), some new clothes and him once again coming home tired, aching and sore everyday, but the benefits have to outweigh the negatives.

You know the saying “it’s who you know?” In this case, it really is all about contacts. It was an old flatmate of mine (now in a relationship with T’s sister and who has just had two kids with her, funnily enough) who got T his first job in the industry, and who got him this gig. It probably goes without saying that I am incredibly grateful to have crossed paths with him back in 2006. I was NOT looking forward to another round of endless job seeking like the one T went through last year. Even though it wasn’t me on the line, that didn’t make it any easier – the discouragement, the frustration, the disheartened face that would greet me when I got in the door.

So, whether this lasts, whether this leads to anything more, remains to be seen. Whether he wants to stay in the industry isn’t even really on the cards right now. I don’t think an apprenticeship is going to happen – people seem to think it’s easy to get one, but they be FOOLS – but at least he has the option of paying a few hundred dollars and getting his welding tickets if need be. (The only bummer is that they don’t last long and have to be renewed constantly. NOT cheap.)

For now, I want us to be able to really get our financial house in order; it hurts me to think how much we frittered away in the past, but we’ve learned to live on so much less now. The priority will be getting his debt paid down, while saving a little for a rainy day, while the money is there. After that, we’ll see.

As for me, I have a whole post coming up on that. Stay tuned!

I mentioned the other day that I was worried about my job stability. And when I start to get worried about, well, anything, I tend to go overboard to compensate. Freaking out about lack of cashflow? I overload on mystery shopping assignments and waste far too much time looking at ads for casual/one off jobs.

There may not be enough FT positions currently advertised for me to go all Rambo on, but I am applying for one role – basically coordinating publications across my university. As far as I can tell, it’s a permanent position, and though I’ve been putting off compiling my app, I’m at the stage where I just need to copy, paste and hit send.

Now I’m starting to freak out. What if I get offered it? The position starts almost immediately, and I have a fairly long notice period (although I’m sure we could work something out). Can I do the job? What if it’s a bad move long term, because it’s a move slightly off the journalism path? Do I even want to take it? Should I just stay put, cross my fingers and hope for the best? As much as I love my workplace, as much as my manager might like me and want to see me shine, there certainly are no guarantees.

I’m just going to press enter, and forget about the whole thing unless I hear anymore back from them.

I caught up with a handful of other journo majors a couple of weekends ago. Out of all of them, I was the only one with a full time job. Don’t get me wrong – a LOT of others (albeit not in attendance) have found work, and in journalism. Even, surprisingly, in print. Something we discussed – in between bits of juicy, scandalous gossip – was that it’s funny how many of the people who got jobs right out of university are the ones who you least expected to. It just goes to show: you don’t need to be wildly successful at school to be successful professionally.

As time goes by, I think I’m starting to realise that where I’d really like to be is in subbing and editing. There’s nothing I get more satisfaction from than honing a piece to be the best it can be; spotting errors, fixing them, tightening up sentences. As much as I’ve learned this year, and as much as my skin has thickened (which admittedly is still not a lot) I still often find interviewing daunting. I’m not the most graceful of swans, socially speaking, at any given time. And when I’m facing people who don’t want to talk to me…

Right after I shook hands on the two projects I’m lined up to assist on (both technical in nature) some writing assignments came up. A few other grads from my class were brought on for those. The big boss apologised for how that panned out to me, and said my direct boss had been lobbying on my behalf and really believed in me. He’s the one who suggested me doing more writing, without even having to ask. And is giving me every opportunity to write as they come up. Can I just say how great it feels to have someone on your side?

And yet, I know I should be pushing for myself, you know, on my own. Except I’m not sure how to do that exactly. And as I said, a typical reporting job is something I’m slightly ambivalent about. But I guess I gotta do my time first, and surely the idea of my fellow grads being hired and surpassing me here will be enough to spur me on.