"Where else would you go when you have an ax to grind?"

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Back in the saddle again



I am finally gainfully employed once again. And once again, it's with a community newspaper. I looked around for work outside the newspaper industry. No really, I did - I even thought seriously about working the other side of the street and going to work for one of the political parties. I looked for gigs in corporate communications and advertising and public relations and technical writing. I still might end up teaching English to foreign students by this time next year, since this is only a six-month contract gig. And its almost the exact same job I left behind nearly 14 years ago when I departed Canada for Japan and I really didn't want to go back to the 60-hours-a-week-for-all-newsprint-you-can-eat world of the community newspaper business ever again, not after all those years of working to daily deadlines and the luxury of having a deep bench of co-workers to cover days off for each other and take up the slack when  you're having a tough week.



But it has been six months since I left the newspaper in Japan and I'm seriously jonesing to be writing for living again. Simply put, in  the end I'd rather be overworked and underpaid to cover local politics, the police beat and write stories about the interesting people in my community than "payment due" letters and direct mail brochures about the latest and greatest offer that you can't afford to pass up on crap you neither need nor want.
And no, I won't tell you where I work, nor will I blog about my workplace as that way lays unemployment.


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