20040914
working
dean francis alfar wrote extensively on salary info in his blog ('reality check'). it must have taken him a long time - and a lot of tactful interviewing - to gather all that salary info!
i was a strange one in college - i adamantly refused to shift majors and become something else other than a writer. everyone told me to get out of it. it just made me more curious about what writing for a living might be like. it made me suspicious - why? why'd they want me to bail? they prolly don't think i can do it!
and then i thought, well... if the job prospects stank, then i will fail! what am i going to do?!
panicked for experiencing a job i really wanted to succeed in, i started looking for internships. no, i didn't know what an 'internship' was until it plunked itself down on my desk in front of me.
'apply,' ordered my journalism professor. in front of me placidly rested, a little skewed, an application form for a summer semester at northwestern university, whose esteemed medill school of journalism i can only dream of affording. i was a sophomore. i'd only know about medill much later, nearer graduation, in fact. but i shrugged and snipped my clips and made sure to white-out - liquid paper, ahaha - where it needed and mail the package in time to meet deadline. how i got in remains a mystery. even my medill professors didn't know.
'what does that mean?' they laughed, when i wide-eyedly asked them. it was the summer before my junior year, when we were choosing which magazine, newspaper or organization to sell our souls to. i'd learned suspicion and humor. they're sweet.
all that the internship taught me was that i really liked being wordie, loud and insistent, but i gotta get paid doing it. i gotta swallow being snipped and answering the phone and lifting the mail and copyediting the work and copying the papers. i gotta learn how to write in cramped spaces with everyone yelling and all the phones ringing and traffic outside blaring and the radio incessant and papers around me flying. but i forgot all that when i saw my first paycheck - three times more than what i earned as a testing center office assistant! more than an english tutor! oh gosh. i can go to florida! ahaha.
eventually i hadta tone down because the internship ended and i was back to the testing center at school proctoring and filing and tutoring. but more so, all too soon later i was graduating and i needed a full time job!
so i hunted for salary prices within my major. i read wetfeet.com, monster.com, careerbuilder.com; fast company, time, newsweek, the wall street journal, the new york times, u.s.a. today, the chicago tribune, the daily herald; learned to write resumes and coverletters. it was the early 2000s and the job prospects were golden, but most of what i read said that i hadta go for something i liked, because i'd be spending 8 hours of my short 24, five out of my precious seven days with this company and in this job. i hadta stick to it for at least a year. i hadta like it.
just knowing how much i could make starting out in journalism had become a great burden reliever, ahaha. the starting salary was totally unlivable, ahahaha - but at that time i had intentions of moving out for at least five years after graduation. i could make it work.
right now, i am in my fourth year of my five-year plan of staying home, and it appears that i might hafta extend for another two years, ahaha. i learned what it really was like to hold down a job and to come on time and keep up with the piling papers on your desk and the incessant ringing of phones and incoming messages. at its bleakest, you look forward to counting vacation days. at its brightest, you can rely on several months or years' experience if you want to move to another job. you learn how and when to create office gossip, ahaha.
in my short worklife, i've discovered one golden and one amazing thing.
most golden to me's i remembered why i chose to be in this business in the first place. i don't want to get too rosy around here coz i might take it back a mere 12 hours from right now, as i'm writing it, ahaha - my workfield's that fickle. i still sour and scream 'SHUT UP!' in my mind whenever i hear officemates erupt in laughter. i still mutter 'go back to work!' when they merrily cluck away. i still take too long for lunch and come in (and leave) late.
most amazing to me's that i'm learning to treasure moments of joy during my worklife, despite the gloom of clocking in and out. the really funny jokes. the bizzare office quirks - the habit of saving tapes of live bloopers of colleagues on t.v. for the others to see. the habit of giving each other cards for birthdays or going aways. maternity and paternity leaves and donuts and jeans on fridays. 'when the adults aren't around' - meaning when all the managing editors go on vacation, we 'kids' get to relax and play. those moments are always tongue-in-cheek, but they make working satisfying.
ok. off to bed so i can return to slaving at my desk again... ahahaha... thanks for reading! good night. :-)
¶ 9/14/2004 02:31:00 AM
i was a strange one in college - i adamantly refused to shift majors and become something else other than a writer. everyone told me to get out of it. it just made me more curious about what writing for a living might be like. it made me suspicious - why? why'd they want me to bail? they prolly don't think i can do it!
and then i thought, well... if the job prospects stank, then i will fail! what am i going to do?!
panicked for experiencing a job i really wanted to succeed in, i started looking for internships. no, i didn't know what an 'internship' was until it plunked itself down on my desk in front of me.
'apply,' ordered my journalism professor. in front of me placidly rested, a little skewed, an application form for a summer semester at northwestern university, whose esteemed medill school of journalism i can only dream of affording. i was a sophomore. i'd only know about medill much later, nearer graduation, in fact. but i shrugged and snipped my clips and made sure to white-out - liquid paper, ahaha - where it needed and mail the package in time to meet deadline. how i got in remains a mystery. even my medill professors didn't know.
'what does that mean?' they laughed, when i wide-eyedly asked them. it was the summer before my junior year, when we were choosing which magazine, newspaper or organization to sell our souls to. i'd learned suspicion and humor. they're sweet.
all that the internship taught me was that i really liked being wordie, loud and insistent, but i gotta get paid doing it. i gotta swallow being snipped and answering the phone and lifting the mail and copyediting the work and copying the papers. i gotta learn how to write in cramped spaces with everyone yelling and all the phones ringing and traffic outside blaring and the radio incessant and papers around me flying. but i forgot all that when i saw my first paycheck - three times more than what i earned as a testing center office assistant! more than an english tutor! oh gosh. i can go to florida! ahaha.
eventually i hadta tone down because the internship ended and i was back to the testing center at school proctoring and filing and tutoring. but more so, all too soon later i was graduating and i needed a full time job!
so i hunted for salary prices within my major. i read wetfeet.com, monster.com, careerbuilder.com; fast company, time, newsweek, the wall street journal, the new york times, u.s.a. today, the chicago tribune, the daily herald; learned to write resumes and coverletters. it was the early 2000s and the job prospects were golden, but most of what i read said that i hadta go for something i liked, because i'd be spending 8 hours of my short 24, five out of my precious seven days with this company and in this job. i hadta stick to it for at least a year. i hadta like it.
just knowing how much i could make starting out in journalism had become a great burden reliever, ahaha. the starting salary was totally unlivable, ahahaha - but at that time i had intentions of moving out for at least five years after graduation. i could make it work.
right now, i am in my fourth year of my five-year plan of staying home, and it appears that i might hafta extend for another two years, ahaha. i learned what it really was like to hold down a job and to come on time and keep up with the piling papers on your desk and the incessant ringing of phones and incoming messages. at its bleakest, you look forward to counting vacation days. at its brightest, you can rely on several months or years' experience if you want to move to another job. you learn how and when to create office gossip, ahaha.
in my short worklife, i've discovered one golden and one amazing thing.
most golden to me's i remembered why i chose to be in this business in the first place. i don't want to get too rosy around here coz i might take it back a mere 12 hours from right now, as i'm writing it, ahaha - my workfield's that fickle. i still sour and scream 'SHUT UP!' in my mind whenever i hear officemates erupt in laughter. i still mutter 'go back to work!' when they merrily cluck away. i still take too long for lunch and come in (and leave) late.
most amazing to me's that i'm learning to treasure moments of joy during my worklife, despite the gloom of clocking in and out. the really funny jokes. the bizzare office quirks - the habit of saving tapes of live bloopers of colleagues on t.v. for the others to see. the habit of giving each other cards for birthdays or going aways. maternity and paternity leaves and donuts and jeans on fridays. 'when the adults aren't around' - meaning when all the managing editors go on vacation, we 'kids' get to relax and play. those moments are always tongue-in-cheek, but they make working satisfying.
ok. off to bed so i can return to slaving at my desk again... ahahaha... thanks for reading! good night. :-)
¶ 9/14/2004 02:31:00 AM
