The (Mis?)Adventures of a Perpetual Job-Hunter/Job-Hater

Okay, what initially started off as the usual end-of-the-workweek relief has graduated to full-blown dread of the thought of ushering in a brand new workweek at the new job. I can’t believe I said I was actually starting to “like” it. I don’t quite despise it, which is still a step above my previous jobs, but this is where it starts. It’s all downhill from here.

I’m just not loving the fact that my superiors have these pre-conceived notions about me. I come with previous editorial experience at two of the company’s biggest competitors, which shared the same editorial processes, for the most part, so there are definitely things that can be skipped in my training. However, that doesn’t warrant pretty much doing away with my training altogether. In my first two weeks, my supervisor has sat down with me to teach me about the editorial processes they follow for a total of 30 minutes, LITERALLY. Also, in my intervew I explicitly mentioned that I’d never edited a book (only looseleafs and newsletters), and already I’ve been assigned a behemoth of a book with very little guidance. The thought of working on it tomorrow is making me want to poke my eyes out a little. It’s so incredibly boring, too, which doesn’t help. I’m sure the subject of intellectual property would be interesting to study as a law student, but it certainly isn’t interesting in the context I’m encountering it. I have to finish editing this book by the end of December… it’s all really ridiculous… I honestly don’t know how I’ll do it. I hate new jobs that force you to ask a billion questions, you know ? Don’t get me wrong, I’d be fine with asking questions for clarification, but the problem lies in the fact that I don’t quite know what questions to ask since I haven’t been adequately trained yet – I don’t even have the proper knowledge to ask coherent questions. Seriously, sometimes I want to ask my supervisor something, and I’ll practice formulating the question in my head, and it turns out to be something that sounds so embarrassingly dumb that I end up not asking the question. Anyway, I now realize that I’m going to have to buck up and ask numerous dumb questions in order to finish editing the book. Ugh.

On top of it all, I really SUCK at editing material that I find boring. Yeah, I really wasn’t the scrupulous editor I should’ve been at my last job as an editor. It’s just that when I’m reading something boring, I’m not engaged enough to care about whether or not I’ve caught all errors… I really just want to skim everything and be done with the pages in front of me as soon as possible.

I’m really not a good editor in this context. I’m just too darn bored to care. This is yet another reason why I know this job isn’t for me… I’m not very good at it. And what kind of self-fulfillment can come out of a job that I can’t be proud of doing well?

Sigh, I wish this weekend wouldn’t end.

I was plagued by the most disgusting dizziness today. It started at about 9:30 am and lasted the entire work day. I think a lot of people who have desk jobs suffer from this ailment now and then, but I’m convinced that working in legal publishing increases the frequency of my dizziness episodes. Marking up and being hunched over hundreds of pages for hours on end, all the while trying to decipher legalese that employs a bunch of misplaced and, in my opinion, unnecessary commas that impede comprehension (I’m definitely a fan of the comma, as you all can tell by now, but even I’ll admit that my curvy little friend can make too many appearances) really does aggravate my desk-job-rooted proneness to dizziness. Ugh. Such. A. Bad. Day.

Anyway, another dizzying situation is the scheduling issue I’ve been having with regard to the internship. The editor at the magazine emailed me on Monday to let me know that after more thought, she realized that she could not accommodate my new job schedule. But she’d be more than happy to take me on as an intern as soon as my availability opens up. So, because I decided that I can’t let this opportunity slip away, I approached my supervisor and asked her if I could still stay on with the company and work Monday to Wednesday (so that I can dedicate all of Thursday and Friday to the internship). She was happy to work with this proposed schedule, but unfortunately I’m still waiting for official approval from the Big Kahuna. So, I’ll have to wait and see what happens… but I’ve made a choice – I’m going to do this internship even if my work schedule doesn’t get approved. If I don’t, then what was the Big Stand that I took when I quit my previous job for???

I’ve realized that sometimes all it really boils down to is a choice. Sometimes it’s not about dizzying yourself by keeping your options open, trying to juggle a couple of opportunities and then waiting to see which one ends up working out. Sometimes it’s about streamlining… eliminating the non-essentials… choosing to do what you truly want to do, thereby creating a simple trajectory to follow, even if the risks of that simple path are obviously high (therefore rendering that simple path not so simple after all!) and you’re not sure where you’ll end up at the end of it all. Those  types of choices are particularly difficult to make… a choice is a full-fledged commitment, and it’s absolutely terrifying to commit to something that’s so uncertain. But making these choices is contingent on a leap of faith that’s the starting point for the fruition of truly remarkable things.

…

I’ll work my way up to “remarkable”. Right now, I’ll settle for trying to ”do something that I actually want to do”. But then again, some might even call that remarkable, no?

The editor at the magazine had no qualms about working around my work schedule! I’m incredibly excited!!!! I’m so elated that I don’t have to give up this experience.

Man, I hope this leads to good things. I really, really hope that in a year I can say that I actually work – for wages – at a magazine. Maybe in 2.5 years I’ll somehow get an Assistant Editor gig… and I’d be happy to remain in that position until the 5-year mark - hopefully at that point I’ll be a full-fledged Editor.

I think I should take some magazine publishing courses… I really wish I hadn’t switched my Journalism major to English in the second year of my undergraduate career. I mean, I don’t regret the route I ended up taking. I wholeheartedly loved my undergrad courses in English and didn’t know for certain that I no longer wanted to pursue my PhD until after I finished my MA and was just a couple months away from beginning the PhD, so I had no clue it would all end up this way and that I’d eventually want to pursue a journalistic rather than academic career… but it’s not too late, right?

It’s never too late!

Can’t it all just work out for me for once? So the new job is fine, but it lost quite a bit of its lustre this afternoon when my supervisor told me that I can’t work early hours until my “newness” has diminished. She wants me to get more traning under my belt before I begin working without a supervisor in the office (the earliest a supervisor arrives in the morning is 7). The problem – IT’S A BIG PROBLEM – is that I’m supposed to intern from 2-5. I was supposed to work from 5-1, which would’ve worked perfectly with my internship hours, but now my plan that was neatly tied up with a pretty little bow has gone completely to hell.

I want to be a part of this magazine – seriously, I NEED this experience. Since Friday is a short work day at the company I work for, I can intern from 12:15 to 5, but the internship requires a two-day commitment. I’ve already emailed the editor of the magazine with all of the details re: the schedule debacle and told her I can come in for an hour Monday to Thursday (to discuss new developments and assignments that I can take home) AND dedicate all my spare time to completing tasks on my own time (I completed some fact-checking on my own this past week and it went really well!)… I just hope we can work something out.

What am I supposed to do, though? While I need to intern for the magazine to help me get on the career path that I want to be on, since I haven’t won the lottery yet, I also need this job. And for the first time in a very long time, I can say that my job is decent… and the company is more than decent. It’s a truly solid company, actually. Probably the best I’ve worked for in terms of taking care of employees. I’m on contract, but the chances of getting hired permanently are quite high… and once that happens, I could work the hours I want, receive awesome benefits (maternity leave top-up!), and eventually work from home FOREVER if I choose to do so.

At the end of the day, though, I don’t think it would be enough. Yes, I do think I would be able to learn to accept having a “meh” job at a good company. But it still wouldn’t be enough… I could never permanently quiet the nagging voice inside my head, which would constantly remind me that I’d be happier doing something else.

I just hope that nagging voice never leaves me – because so long as I’m armed with it, there will always be potential for my continued evolution. I don’t ever want to lose the ability to want better for myself when I know I can amount to so much more.

Wow, it’s been quite some time since my last post! A lot has happened since my last blogging session…

So the interview for the editorial internship that I really wanted went extremely well on Monday – I was accepted for the position on the spot. I was definitely stoked, but at the same time I was pretty disappointed about not yet having secured a part-time position. I thought I was fully prepared to intern full-time at the magazine no matter what , but reality set in and I really can’t live with myself relying solely on my poor husband to shoulder all of our financial responsibilities… they’re not particularly burdensome, and we could probably survive on his income alone for a little while if we exercise the strictest discipline in adhering to a budget, but I can’t do that to him (and we’re not the disciplined sort, haha!). Besides, I’m a grown-a$$ woman and should be pulling my own weight, for goodness’ sake! I really would feel ashamed of myself… and to be honest, I have been a little ashamed of myself being unemployed these past two weeks, which is an issue I’ll blog about in detail very soon.

Anyway, then yesterday I got offered the editor job that I’ve mentioned previously. And because I’m an absolute idiot when put on the spot, I accepted it. HI. How can I intern full-time AND work full-time??? Why do I put myself in these sticky situations? Because I really am an idiot who apparently relishes dilemmas!

I don’t know what to do… especially because I think I can actually have my cake and eat it too with a part-time editorial internship that I’ve got lined up… it’s with a smaller magazine, but the internship could probably provide me with some great writing experience because the publication is so small and interns are heavily relied upon for contributing content… which I wouldn’t mind since I don’t think it’s far-fetched to surmise that it could perhaps lead to a paid gig in the future. See, the answer seems so clear – work full-time and intern part-time. But I already committed to the full-time internship and don’t know how to go about rescinding my commitment. AHHHH. It wouldn’t be so difficult to do if I didn’t care so much… this is an industry I really do want to break in to and I don’t want to burn any bridges on the outset of my foray into the magazine world.

The timing of everything was just so incredibly off. My maybe-soon-to-be employer should’ve offered me that damn job sooner so that I could’ve assessed my options properly. At the end of the day, I’m sure this happens quite a lot – candidates who accept offers end up having to revoke their acceptance due to a more suitable opportunity that comes along afterwards… I’m sure that the person to whom I’ll end up having to rescind my acceptance will understand, but the thought of doing it is making me a little sick to my stomach. Eck. Seriously.

Well, at least the Thanksgiving festivities this weekend will take my mind off of it temporarily. Happy Thanksgiving weekend to you all!