Farewell

“Goodbye my friends. So glad we made it.” Those Spice Girls said it best. If only the size of Geri Halliwell’s platforms hadn’t overpowered the group’s profound lyrics.

I’m thrilled to join the ranks of many of you and offer others hope that a magazine career in New York is attainable. Sure, past Ed’s Girls started as interns and I joined a small-name publication, but we’re in the door and on the elevator up. In the meantime, we have Ed happy hours to vent about our underappreciation in a field inundated with eager entry-level workers.

Quitting my job and moving to the city without a single prospect was one of the scariest and most exhilarating transitions of my life. The results came out better than I imagined. As cliché as it sounds (because goodbyes are the one place clichés are not only ok, but expected), I can’t remember the last time I felt this alive.

Writing this blog was cathartic. I vented my insecurities to a faceless but helpful group of intelligent, young professionals who stood by to offer the metaphorical “you go girl!” I needed when feeling down. Even the criticisms helped highlight my skewed thinking at times.

I grew attached to the semi-daily release. People say this blogging thing is addictive. I never thought I’d begin brainstorming a new shtick for my own site once this one came to an end (I will keep you posted if I get something up-and-running).

So this is it. I must go on and live and work without interested strangers offering praise and condolences. Back to life where only my mom agrees to listen to a play-by-play of my day’s events. I will miss moonlighting as an anonymous figure. I sort of felt like Batman. Thanks for reading.

As Ever,

Ed’s Girl III

Employed

I accepted. What a flip-flopper I turned out to be. To decide, I listed the pros and cons of taking it, my normal routine for making any major life choice. Whichever list is longer determines it. It’s how I decided to quit my job and move to New York in the first place.

Pros:
• A regular paycheck
• I like my boss and coworkers
• I write my own column
• I proof the entire book
• It’s an assistant-editor-level position
• The magazine is a part of a major publishing house
• I already know the office atmosphere is a good fit
• The pay is better than most starting EA salaries
• It’s near my apartment
• Most importantly, the offer is on the table (and the table is empty otherwise)

Cons:
• The subject matter is dry
• I process A LOT of press releases
• It’s the first interview I went on in New York, i.e., I didn’t get much time to see what else is out there
• Leaving soon for a better opportunity would reflect poorly

In the end, the pros list won.

Another factor helped inform my decision. I ate lunch with the guy who last worked the job yesterday. He studied at the Sorbonne and has a master’s from Columbia (which made me feel like a total brat for not realizing the luck of this job falling into my lap).

John told me the great thing about working for one magazine when you ultimately want to be someplace else is you can wait for the perfect opportunity. When he was looking for a job, his desperation for immediate work tainted conversations with fellow journalists. Once employed, he could socialize and network with colleagues without needing them for something. Now he’s a reporter at his magazine of choice.

There’s a bonus. The job requires me to represent the magazine at industry conferences so I get to take free trips every few months. In three weeks, I go to Orlando for the week. After the meetings, I can visit my newly widowed (is it widowered?) grandfather for a couple days to keep him company.

I’m in. Officially a member of New York’s magazine publishing world. In my own little way. Your responses helped inform my choice. Thanks guys.

Surprisingly content,

EG3

Just take it

Everyone — friends, parents, friends’ parents — keeps telling me to accept the job and keep looking. This is New York. You gotta look out for yourself. If I find something in a month I can quit. Burned bridges and all.

I am one of those authority pleasers to the core, shamelessly sucking up to teachers as a kid and devouring every morsel of praise my former boss tossed my way. I stayed at that paper, despite severe personal dissatisfaction, to put in a respectable amount of time. Can I really look at this job as a way to pay the bills while continuing to search and interview? Making this Ed’s Girl blog as anticlimactic as an M. Night Shyamalan movie.

In order to take it, I need to suppress my usual work ethic and look at the position objectively. I have an offer to be the news editor at a national, award-winning monthly magazine. Am I a lunatic if I turn it down? Am I a sell-out if I keep it? It’s not like I’m hawking insurance. It’s just not in my top 20.

I live in Manhattan now. I still owe my wonderful, generous roommate $1400 for the broker fee and other miscellaneous move-in items. I currently have $700 to my name. Plus college loans. And another $1000 rent bill due on the first. I need to balance my youthful optimism with some reality — I need money.

Freelancing for the Upstate paper is over. Will I be kicking myself in six months while I’m still looking for a magazine job and waitressing? Or worse, I’ll already be back home, living with the parents and chiseling away at a maxed-out credit card bill.

I ate sushi Friday with the woman from the travel magazine who used to work at my old paper. They filled the research job in-house. Damn. Yet she offered some good insight on how to finagle my way into her publication or one of the competitors.

Freelance. In the truest sense of the word. Start writing, pro bono if necessary, for all the magazines where I want to work. Submit detailed queries with story ideas that mirror the content and suggest a specific place for the piece. That’s how she landed her job — after three-and-a-half years of writing stories, interviewing constantly, and working for less-than-ideal publications.

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” a former professor used to tell me. Somewhat contrived but helpful. I may achieve my dream job in 2020, not next week. Or next month. In the meantime, I must keep jogging.

I told the EIC I will decide by Wednesday. Let the insomnia begin…

Having major second thoughts,

Ed’s Girl the Third

A Bug's Life

Walking to work this morning, I noticed a UPS man struggling to hoist his dolly of boxes up a doorstep. A FedEx guy, making a delivery at the next apartment building, rushed over to help him.

Witnessing the random kind gesture between supposed rivals helped start my day with a smile. It also reinforced how freaking in love I am with New York. After living in places where city streets lack pedestrians, I’m still soaking in all the constant new faces. I study how people interract with their friends on the street or wonder what they’re listening through those little white earpieces.

The sheer number of people everywhere I go is a constant reminder of my insignificance. Which is so freeing. Nobody really cares, besides me and maybe my parents, whether I get the job I want or pay my bills on time. All the more reason to take some chances and see whether this little ant can climb to the top of the mound. Or at least dig out her own little tunnel.

I’m still burrowing through, slowly but surely. Today, I met with the EIC of one of the sister publications of my freelance employer. This magazine is well known and well written. It has feature stories, and, although it targets a certain professional group, is lifestyle-oriented enough to keep its readers from falling asleep in their overstuffed leather desk chairs. They don’t have any positions but he offered to ask some of his colleagues at other publications whether they need reporters. Score.

I want to take advantage of speaking to all the people who might have contacts in this industry before I depart. Although my stint as the news editor has been extended by a week. I need money. My editor needs help. I’m still not taking this job full-time.

I know where I want to be — writing for a monthly travel or political magazine. I have a list of dream employers in mind, but for obvious, self-incriminating reasons, cannot divulge.

I also know that at 22 and with little experience, I have a long way before I get there. The year 2010 is fast approaching and will come and go long before I achieve minor success. My dream job is attainable by 2020. I hope. I’m willing to pay my dues. I just want to feel like I’m paying for something I actually want to buy — a career in a journalism genre in which I take an interest.

This weekend, I am concentrating on the job search. Next up… one of life’s great dilemmas. To be or not to be an intern. Many an Ed’s Girl has pondered this profound question. Am I selling myself short by dropping from trained professional to slightly bothersome helper? Or is it the only way to break out of my business-reporting shackles and jump into lifestyle magazine writing? E-mail your advice, hints and job offers to edsgirl@ed2010.com.

As Ever,
EG3

The curse of the Almighty dollar

My boss called me to her office Friday. She asked whether I’m interested in staying with the publication. Apparently, they received more than 100 applications for the job. And it’s not even a glamorous role.

When she told me that, it solidified my fear that I am just one of thousands of young, educated mignons desperately trying to break into this industry. Why do we torture ourselves? The pay is lousy and the schedule sucks. I guess there’s something gratifying about holding tangible evidence of my work that other people read to learn, laugh, or be informed.

Throwing up yet? Sorry for reciting a professor’s day-one lecture from Journalism 101, but I really buy into the idea that this industry — even magazines — serves an important societal purpose. But I totally digress.

My boss explained she’s still interviewing and is seriously considering a guy with a background in IT but wants to gauge my interest in the position. I’m torn. Classic money versus happiness. But can you really have one without the other? And where will I even find said happiness? Or is it just the endless pursuit of it we all crave?

If happiness is becoming an EA at one of my dream publications, then my journey to that place has just begun. I had zero free minutes to send resumes and bug contacts last week. I worked until 7 every day and came home and wrote stories for my old newspaper all night. I feel like I’m wading in somewhat menial work to keep my head above water to pay ever-mounting bills without finding the time to look for something in the genre I envisioned.

I know financial instability is supposed to be an endearing, transitory consequence of youth, but having no clear source of income in the future is irritating my stomach lining. My parents can’t help me — if I fall apart, I can always move home. But I can’t ask, nor can they afford, to finance my life in New York.

Nonetheless, I’m not going to take the job. I will, somehow, figure out a way to make ends meet. Without categorizing myself as a business reporter indefinitely by taking a second job in a field I know is not for me.

Today, I start my last week at work. Right after my first. I wonder if anyone will bake cupcakes.

Keeping my eye on the prize,

Ed’s Girl III

Middle school flashbacks

Days one and two went well. I arrived early Monday to discover the IT guy in charge of setting up my computer had not. While I waited to get situated, I explored the place — tested the coffee quality, scoped for vending machines and bathrooms — you know, the important stuff.

My writing ships directly to the EIC, the same woman who interviewed me. She gave me a quick overview of what I need to write, the publication’s style guides, and sent me on my way.

The work is as tedious as I anticipated although my former editor tells me deciphering press releases for a hint of coherence is good training if I want to manage a magazine or newspaper someday — it helps finetune the bullshit monitor.

It’s tough though because I’m not supposed to do any outside research, just use the material from releases to write the blurbs for the FOB. But it’s hard to tell that an “enterprise management system” is payroll software for HR unless I google the phrase. In order to ease my life, I am lobbying to have “solution,” ‘service,” “dedication,” and “quality” removed the English language because the words are void of meaning after years of marketing abuse.

Alas, I’m left to improvise what exactly a generic “quality software solution” actually does. My boss looks just like my 9th grade math teacher Mrs. Dubke. And just like when my teacher pointed at me and asked the number of sides on a trapezoid I freeze, blush, and stutter when my new superior tries to engage me in a discussion of technology.

There are definite perks. The people seem fun and welcoming and the office is a 10-minute walk from my apartment. At last, I sit among people my age who ask me to lunch and talk about things to which I can relate. It’s going to be a nice two weeks but I doubt it will develop into anything more. Which is ok. You will have to keep reading to see where I end up. I can’t wait to find out too.

As Always,

EG3

I hope they like me

Today I start my new job. And two Fridays from now, I finish it. It actually reminds me of some of my best relationships — we know we’re not right for each other but we both have needs. Once those are met, we can part amicably.

I feel like it’s the first day of school. I picked out my outfit the night before and mapped out the best walking route in the morning. Except instead of reading syllabi and seeing which friends are in my classes, I’m expected to start producing immediately.

Earning an hourly rate reminds me that e-mailing, blogging, and zoning out need to be restricted to the evenings. Whereas at my last job, I reached a level of efficiency that allowed me to be completely inefficient at least an hour a day.

I just hope I can fudge my knowledge of technology like I did about insurance and manufacturing and all the other random industries I wrote about at my old job. Maybe they’ll see through me and realize I’m just a kid who likes words. Or worse — figure out I’m a total technological neophyte. It takes me 20 minutes to figure out how to clear the cookies on my browser and I will be providing the legal community with the latest products to ease their stressful lives.

This is what I like about journalism. It’s the only career other than acting where we earn a living pretending. By doing some basic research and asking the right mix of questions, we journalists can write with authority about whatever topic tossed on our desks. And with the good ones — like good actors — no one can tell we’re faking.

Here’s hoping I’m more Meryl Streep and less Madonna.

Wish me luck,

Ed’s Girl III

Siderodromophobia

Definition: fear of trains, railroads, or train travel.

I'm not so much afraid of the actual railcars but the frightening creatures that lurk inside the New York City subway system. And no, I'm not talking about the singing born-agains.

I trekked southwest today to Magnolia Bakery for the famous cupcakes. My roommate loves them and it was her birthday. Riding the L train west, I realized I moved to a place with the highest concentration of my two phobias: rodents and germs.

I saw a cat-size rat scurrying along a rail track standing in the Union Square station. I grew up in the country and my cat thought bringing live mice to my bedroom signaled affection. Hence the sheer terror. I know I need to adjust but I worry that every time I use underground mass transit I risk fainting.

Once I’m inside the car, things worsen when my germ phobia kicks in. I grimace when I’m forced to grip the metal pole. Usually, I take my chances and attempt to balance between stops. When I’m forced to hold on, I remind myself that soon I can wash my hands with soap and water and all will be right with the world.

As a child, my mom called me her little Howard Hughes. Do I have a future as a recluse? Since I returned from Florida, I left the apartment twice — to buy a sandwich from the deli on the corner and to do my laundry. I celebrated Independence Day by returning to our country’s isolationist roots.

The past three days I barricaded myself in my apartment, for several reasons. First, I needed to decompress after one of the most volatile and trying weeks of my life. Second, I now need to write eight stories in one week for my old newspaper before I start the new job July 10. Third, I figure if I’m paying $1,000 per month for my living space, I should try and spend some time in it before jobs and interviews limit me to using it as a place to rest my weary head.

I wrote stories and e-mailed job contacts in my bathrobe. Indulging in solitary behavior can have a damaging effect on one’s work ethic and within two days I began living the college routine, napping and sleeping in, only to stay up late doing the work I assigned myself to complete that day.

Which reminds me. It’s time for bed.

As Ever,

Ed’s Girl III

Funerals and freelancing

Five minutes after I left my interview Tuesday, my grandfather called. She died. I immediately booked a flight and flew to Florida.

My relatives follow the typical WASP trajectory — outside the nuclear families we steer clear of one another as much as possible. Besides the obvious grieving, I spent the last four days feigning interest in virtual strangers. Here I sit in Palm Beach International Airport, taking my first minute of peace to tell you the outcome of my interview.

I know you want me to cut to the chase — I got the job. Sort of. That clears things up. Read on.

After confirming my interview Monday afternoon, I had about 12 hours to buy new ink for my printer, tweak my resumé, write an accompanying cover letter, familiarize myself with the publication, and come up with potential questions she might ask and answers to conquer them.

The publication is forgettable enough that the public library neglected to include it in its catalog and none of the bookstores carry it. My research extended to reading the teaser blurbs for this month’s stories intented to compel visitors to the magazine’s Web site to pay the one-year subscription price to view the full content. I rationalized my minimal preparation by thinking my limited time was better spent discerning how I would articulate my qualification.

Tuesday morning, I walked the eight blocks to the magazine’s headquarters, took the elevator to the seventh floor, and walked into a roomful of young, attractive professionals. The women were thin, pretty, and makeup-free. Some of the men had thick-framed glasses and sideburns. I could see myself here. At least more than among the baldies at my last job.

The temp at the front desk led me to the EIC’s office. Debra, the boss, remarked with surprise, “You’re early, I’m hungry.”

Because I interrupted her sandwich run, Debra offered to take me to lunch. Over Mediterranean chicken and rice, she explained the position.

The technology news editor receives the various unintelligible press releases, translates them to real-human English, condenses them, and compiles them into neat blurbs about new products for the bimonthly’s front-of-the-book. No independent reporting allowed.

Debra wanted someone with potential for advancement who doesn’t consider this work below her (not exactly my thoughts, although “step down” did enter my mind). She also wanted someone passionate about technology.

“Are you passionate about technology?” she asked.

If by passionate, you mean my eyes glaze over and my brain waves plummet the moment someone mentions the word “gigabyte,” then yes, I’m passionate about technology. I don’t think my mouth, or my conscience, would allow me to answer affirmatively. Instead, I chose the honest route. One that, as some of you reminded me, left me unemployed the last time around.

I told her about my work at the upstate newspaper researching, reporting, and writing in-depth analyses and timely news stories. Frankly, I want something more challenging. Perhaps if a reporter position opens up we could meet again.

Plus, I know I can report on business. Since I uprooted my life to move to New York City, I’m holding out longer than a few days for something more fulfilling.

Debra looked disappointed. She seemed happy to find a worker with some business-reporting experience who’s young enough to do the grunt work with a smile. She asked if I would be willing to freelance in the position while she continues looking for a reporter and I continue interviewing for jobs.

“What’s you freelance rate?” she asked. The one question for which I wasn’t prepared.

“$20,” I spat, expecting her to scoff at my request.

“No problem. Do we have a deal?” she asked. Damn it. I should’ve said $25.

I couldn’t pass it up. It’s next month’s rent. I begin writing for them July 10. I use the term “write” loosely. I can continue interviewing in the meantime, I just need to let her know when I have a meeting and schedule accordingly.

I walked out of the interview elated before the reality of mortality came crashing down on me a few minutes later. I loved Grandma Ruth (the one who I explained in an earlier blog trained me to eliminate “like” from my vocabulary) and always called her to update her on my accomplishments. No more. Maybe they have WiFi in heaven.

An amalgam of emotion,

Ed’s Girl the Third