New job search: week one
Not off to a blazing start, actually.
A couple of weeks ago, I'd pitched a ten-page plan to the CWS that would have had me doing less singing and more songwriting. And, for that matter, a fair amount of blogging.
It was an audacious plan, in the sense that our singing outfit has no social media arm, doesn't quite know what social media is, and takes as a serious threat anything that hasn't been cleared off on by two dozen people: there's no think like groupthink, after all.
My plan was roundly ignored. I queried the CWS gently. It was still ignored. I queried again, a few days later. Nada. I brought it up late last week, for a third time.
"Tell me what this stuff is, again?" asked the CWS, pretending that she'd read it.
I briefly "reminded" her. She listened for about four minutes, while simultaneously reading her Blackberry.
"Ya, ok; do it." She began texting a reply to someone more important.
"Implement the whole plan?"
She didn't look up. "Um....sure."
I'm not yet a paid blogger, in the sense that we now move on to the "sudden death" round, in which I pitch it to the folks who actually control central communications and the technical end of things. I mean, I already pitched it on Thursday, and got, of course, the first requisite round of being ignored. A couple more, and then...
Well, geez; if I'm getting paid to blog, perhaps I should stick around a while longer? Just to see how this plays out?
Still finding the entire wedding-singing culture rather soul-crushing and emotionally numbing, in case that isn't coming through. Still need a medium-term exit plan, and probably one more realistic than applying for an MFA program (though I've made a serious start on the required novella-length writing sample for those applications, and am devoting a week-long in situ writer's retreat -- of sorts -- to it later this month). Still going to apply for that London job, simply because it's London, and will still trawl for more likely opportunities, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.
Still hating the career whiplash.
Ugh. Why is all of this so hard?
A couple of weeks ago, I'd pitched a ten-page plan to the CWS that would have had me doing less singing and more songwriting. And, for that matter, a fair amount of blogging.
It was an audacious plan, in the sense that our singing outfit has no social media arm, doesn't quite know what social media is, and takes as a serious threat anything that hasn't been cleared off on by two dozen people: there's no think like groupthink, after all.
My plan was roundly ignored. I queried the CWS gently. It was still ignored. I queried again, a few days later. Nada. I brought it up late last week, for a third time.
"Tell me what this stuff is, again?" asked the CWS, pretending that she'd read it.
I briefly "reminded" her. She listened for about four minutes, while simultaneously reading her Blackberry.
"Ya, ok; do it." She began texting a reply to someone more important.
"Implement the whole plan?"
She didn't look up. "Um....sure."
I'm not yet a paid blogger, in the sense that we now move on to the "sudden death" round, in which I pitch it to the folks who actually control central communications and the technical end of things. I mean, I already pitched it on Thursday, and got, of course, the first requisite round of being ignored. A couple more, and then...
Well, geez; if I'm getting paid to blog, perhaps I should stick around a while longer? Just to see how this plays out?
Still finding the entire wedding-singing culture rather soul-crushing and emotionally numbing, in case that isn't coming through. Still need a medium-term exit plan, and probably one more realistic than applying for an MFA program (though I've made a serious start on the required novella-length writing sample for those applications, and am devoting a week-long in situ writer's retreat -- of sorts -- to it later this month). Still going to apply for that London job, simply because it's London, and will still trawl for more likely opportunities, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.
Still hating the career whiplash.
Ugh. Why is all of this so hard?
1 Comments:
-
Italophile said...
-
- 7:58 AM
Post a CommentIf you do end up sticking with wedding singing and end up looking for ceremonies in other countries, please remind me to tell you about some of this very cool research into social capital that I am doing for my dissertation. A good paper on the topic can, in about three paragraphs, illustrate why you loved your '01-'03 gig and didn't love your '05-'07 one -- while very satisfyingly developing the thesis further if you have the time and energy.
<< Home