Full circle

I love my work. But I don't love my job.
Jan's been bugging me to blog about my newspaper job, but frankly, I've been self-censoring. My penchant for truth just might get me in trouble if I say too much about my job. So I will try to be careful. But I'm blurty, as you probably know. Even with my fingers.

When I was 15 years old, I came to work for this newspaper. I loved it. They loved me. I got paid for something I loved to do (writing). Sometimes I even got paid twice, when the Associated Press would pick up one of my articles.

I was leaving college a few years later and I asked about running this paper, since I knew the editor who had trained me was leaving. I'd been doing the job anyway. Mr TJ Hemlinger, who laid my foundation in newspapering, said it wasn't really an entry level job.

So I looked. I took another job at another paper for another editor who used to work here. He loved my work. But he didn't love me, and he screwed me with a "Chinese overtime" contract.

So I left the paper for politics, which paid better.

Since then I've done lots of things: Public Relations, publishing, pizza, pastry. (See a trend here?)

Two years ago the publisher at this little daily called me to see if I was interested in being the sports editor. She had heard I was back in town (I was actually just passing through, helping my terminal grandmother.) The publisher offered me $7 an hour. I laughed and I left. Grandma was in hospice, and the contract was already signed for me to try seasonal retail.

Well, that didn't turn out so well, did it Jan? We toiled. We met our sales goals. But if anybody made any money at the mall, it sure wasn't me.

Last year, almost hopeless, I accepted a job at the Chinese restaurant. It was literally outside my back door. It didn't require much motivation to get there, and once there, my boss didn't give me any crap (he didn't speak English.)

After the road I've been down career wise, you'd think I would be all better. Or all bitter. I'm somewhere in between. I don't wonder what path I should have taken. I don't have any regrets. Every turn I've taken, I've taken with integrity.
I have experienced many weird and wonderful things I would not know if I had been in the same job 20 years. As a writer, I couldn't replace that.
Sure, I was pissed off at TJ for awhile. I could have run this paper in 1987. Instead they hired someone younger than me with less experience. He worked here 17 years. Would I have wanted to be here 17 years? Hell no.

I am right where I belong, doing community journalism for a community where I was raised. Yes, I am ambivalent about it. Yes I have a love-hate relationship with my hometown (it cost me a hundred in therapy bills to accept this.) But I love my work.

I will always love my work. Whether I'm tending an eight shelf oven or tuning a V-8 engine or covering an eight-team tournament, I will always love my work.

That's just the kind of girl I am.