21
Feb
2010
Sunday Practice (21.02.10)
Ah Sunday. A day when the unemployed can pretend they are like everyone else: sleeping in because they’re about to begin another work week. There’s no shame in getting drunk on Saturday night, waking up Sunday afternoon and spending all day watching Mad Men when you have a job! Hooray! Sunday is an unemployed person’s Halloween: you’re dressed as someone with a salary.
Because Sunday is a national day of relaxing (thanks to the catholic church), there’s lots of time to read. My father likes to point out every article on journalism he reads, which usually describe how twitter is the new newspaper, newspapers are the new toilet paper and journalists have the new worst professions ever. Thanks pops!
This morning, or afternoon should I say, was no different. I stumbled downstairs with last night’s make-up on and stared at the blurry New York Times until my eyes could focus.
“Did you read the article on journalism,” chirped my dad, who’s surely been up since 5 a.m., from the sofa.
“No,” I replied, much preferring to stare at the glossy pictures of celebrities in the Times magazine.
He diligently went through each section of the paper, until he found what he was looking for. I poured myself some tea and hunkered down to read about an editor whose job went from editing a daily online trade newsletter to editing that and ten other weeklies for the same pay.
The article did point out a silver lining for those of us under thirty: We’re less screwed because the boomer generation can remember a better work reality. We were born into the shitstorm.
Then I logged onto Facebook to see my friend had posted a link to another journalism article. I love when people do the leg work for me. This one is infinitely more depressing because it describes a journalist who after being laid off from a magazine, gave himself a social media makeover: joining Facebook, twitter, and starting a blog. He now makes half his
(me sentenced to a life in my bathroom for believing in print journalism)
salary, most of which comes from writing for an online business magazine, rather than from the feature-writing job he loved.
Today was like the Halloween when your cardboard batman mask snaps and all you get are those gross caramels with the orange wrapping.
I think next Sunday I’ll sleep in later, avoid talking to my father, and boycott Facebook. At least then I can enjoy the black and white glossies of Tobey MacGuire and Jake Gyllenhaal and pretend I’m going to work the next day.
18
Feb
2010
Fine Tuning (17.02.10)
Today’s a day for another Unemployment Diary confessional: I turned down a job. Well, more accurately, I was on my way to getting a job and I tripped myself intentionally before the home run.
Why would someone who has dedicated a blog to her unemployment problem sabotage an opportunity to be paid to write? It wasn’t right. I know I said I’d go to the outer edges of the earth to work at a newspaper, but actions are harder than words.
The job I may have gotten was as a news editor in East Coast Canada at a bi-weekly paper. Not bad, except, packing up and moving to a small town is not what I want to do for a number of reasons. Don’t call me a hypocrite, just call me human and allow me to add a clause to my question: How long does it take a Journalism minor to find a job in a dying industry (at a news publication in Ontario/Quebec OR a city with a population of more than 20,000)?
It’s easy to find work, but not the kind that pays. I’ve committed to the next few months in Ottawa for family reasons and so far have found I can write for Metro newspaper on my own dollar. I’ll take it. I start tomorrow. Seriously.
Obviously, I’m still looking for paid work, but in the meantime, no bills + no job = Ang takes free work. No. Not that kind. We’re still talking journalism people.
Recently, when I was in Toronto helping a friend with his play, I decided to interview some of the actors backstage about working “pro-bono” in their field.
Here’s what one of them had to say:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
A quick google search of Lyndie also reveals she acts in a web series called B.J. Fletcher: Private Eye. Check it out, she’s the one with a gun!