The Employment Diaries

Birds of a feather 28.03.10

Happy Sunday friends!

Like many great artists ranging from Shakespeare to Jim Jarmusch have agreed “Nothing’s original” or in Shakespeare’s words: “There is no new thing under the sun.” Here’s how I realized that being a 20-something  aspiring writer is like thinking you’re the only person who likes the black licorice jelly bean. You might not think it, but others do exist.

Enjoy!

I’m here to follow my hunch. Being a freelance writer means having a dog-like alertness and persistence of interesting things. This story’s not new, nor is it very interesting, but trying to get published can require twisting a dry sponge for that extra drop of water.

I’m sitting at a coffee shop. You know the one with red and pastel blue walls, mismatched chairs and cups, art on the walls and personal touches like roses on the table. Your local alternative coffee shop. but, wait for it, minus the WIFI!!!! How do they do it when everyone takes a little internet in their coffee? Sprinkle a little “how does it change the atmosphere?” and “how do they survive?” over “is technology ruining the world or making it a better place?” and you’ve got a yummy story.

It’s been written somewhere before, but I may the first to write about this Ottawa coffee shop. Squeeeeeeze. I sit here typing on my laptop and waiting for the right moment to put on my journalism apron and get cooking.

A girl wearing brown leather shoes, a blue scarf, and big sunglasses on her head walks in and orders a coffee.

“Did you get my e-mail?” she says a little shyly to the curly-haired woman behind the counter.

“Yeah, sorry I haven’t gotten back to you,” she says. “I’ve been so swamped.”

“It’s okay,” says blue scarf. “When do you think you’ll be able to do it?”

An artist wanting to put her work up? A musician looking to play the open mic?

The curly-haired woman wants to meet up in a few days, but blue scarf is pushing for earlier.

“What about right now?” she asks, in that pushy-polite style I’m so familiar with. And then she says it. “I’m on deadline.” The words tumble out of her mouth like slow motion dominoes. I’m. On. Deadline. How could I not have seen it earlier?

Being a freelancer means forgetting about the competition. Being out of school means forgetting there are tons of people exactly like you doing worse and better jobs of telling stories you want to tell. In my home office (read: parent’s attic) and in my boss’ eyes (read: mother’s), I am the best and most talented writer in the world. I walk outside to the tune of bubbles popping.

“Um, okay,” the woman reluctantly agrees, in the way people who hate being interviewed do. “But I’m expecting someone.  Can we make it short?”

“Of course,” says blue scarf. Well played. Accommodate. “We can do just half an hour.”

They sit at a table close to the counter so curly-hair can serve the customers that keep coming in. I saunter to the nearby bookshelf and pretend to leaf through a Douglas Coupland novel.

Blue scarf fumbles with her recorder, making some bad joke about not knowing how to use it. Watching her is like realizing my life is a bad script, watching motions I constantly go through being replayed. She even looks like me, and I bet she listens to Arcade Fire and lives in Chinatown because “It doesn’t feel like Ottawa.”

“So you opened a year and a half ago?” she asks the curly-haired woman, who’s shaking her leg.

"Where'd YOU get your hat?"

Yup.

“Why?”

There were no places like this in Ottawa.

“How did you manage in the middle of the recession?”

I didn’t think about it.

I recognize my own interview style in her: friendly, but detached. Acting impassioned about trivial subjects. Nodding enthusiastically and egging the person on with “mm hmm’s” when I sense a good quote.

Blue scarf is doing it all, but something about her seems amateur. I’m not convinced she’ll get to the heart of the story: how the f#$% are you surviving sans WIFI?

I’ve got the ace in my back pocket as I watch my lesser self dance around the point. I plan it out: once blue scarf leaves, I’ll wait ten minutes, then approach curly-hair and say, “I know you must be really tired of being interviewed…” and we’ll share a laugh about how this is true, and I’ll convince her that my story angle is unique. She’ll be charmed by my informal approach and proceed to speak openly about her no-internet manifesto. The Ottawa Citizen will say  “good work newbie” after publishing my story (with the correct byline this time) and I’ll be one clipping closer to getting a job.

I sit confidently back at my table, leaving amateur-me to ask cotton candy questions before I bust out the jawbreaker. Then it happens. This time, hitting me like a slap in the face from Mother Theresa.

“What about you choice to have no Internet?” she asks.

I barely hear curly-hair’s response, which is muffled by my own anxiety of my doppelganger trumping me.

“Yeah, everyone’s just behind the screen and no one’s talking,” says blue scarf, trying to encourage some more golden material.

She wraps up the interview and even remembers to get contact info for follow-up questions. Both women are smiling and they shake hands.

Blue scarf is me: fumbling through the same interviews with the same types of people that will be published in the same places. We’re all competing for stories, bylines and the coolest sunglasses.

What sets us apart? What will make one of us succeed and the other go into “communications.” If she showed up at my house would my mother even know the difference?

She takes out her laptop and starts writing up the article. I, personally, would go somewhere else so my interviewee could let loose and I could regain my journalistic “neutrality” in another setting. But that’s just me, and though I may have big sunglasses, I’m not wearing a blue scarf.