Decadence of the Masses

The semi-new reporter and I got called into the "meeting room" by the Boss today...which is fine. Except we were the only two called in. And on "meeting day", when the whole editorial staff (all 6 of us) crams in together, it's a little intimidating and potentially career threatening.

So I crossed myself, asked the Staff to pray for me and headed into this top-secret journalistic mission. Turns out we're re-organizing our beats. How fucking great is that? Now, after almost a year of faking smiles and offering insincere handshakes, I have to say goodbye to all the assholes that I've conned into liking me and begin the process all over again. Fuck me.

I really don't even think it would be that bad except for my new beat now includes a town that's a good 45 mintues from home. I'm putting enough miles on my car for not enough reimbursement as it is already without having to drive even farther to fraternize with a bunch of stuffed-shirt, small-town, bullshit politicians.

Oh well. As I said before, it's been almost a year, which means that I'll soon be considered experienced enough to proceed further along in my chosen field, a.k.a get a better job and get the fuck off the sinking ship that the paper is becoming.

On a somewhat sad thought: my chosen field, should I had known what I was getting into four or five years ago when I took all those classes in college, might have been something else. I've dedicated my entire education, which really wasn't all that educating in the first place, to a craft that 1.Stresses me out; 2.Pisses me off; 3.Doesn't really interest me that much; and 4.Has a shitty pay scale.

Don't get me wrong though, I love writing. Poetry, fiction, blogging and just writing for fun is really great. I do enjoy it. But journalism is a different thing. All the big stories have to be about death or destruction or upheaval of some sort. The common pages are left for the feel-good pieces; the ones that give people hope or pride or happiness in general. There's already enough bad news in the world without a small weekly newspaper focusing on the decadence of the masses.

Word to your mother.