WHY I QUIT A NEW JOB AFTER 2.2 DAYS – A TRUE TALE IN 3 CHAPTERS

Chapter two: shouting, students and 3000,000 unanswered questions

Day two saw a rise in both my productivity and heart-rate...
9am-10.57am (and then 10.57-11am): After a morning of reading incomprehensible emails, I had a news meeting from 10.30-10.57am (timings are crucial here, as you will see). At 10.57am, my editor said, "Sarah, write about the Moot in Vienna, it’s an easy one for you. Call the Head of the International Blah Blah Blah in the Middle-East and Africa and interview the team of students from Tunisia who are there competing. Just ask them about a few questions - how it’s going, what their hopes are etc. I said you'd call him at 11. It's 11 now. Call him. "
11am- the end of time: I had a minute to look at a Wikipedia entry on this competition. I had no idea. I then had to call this guy (in my silent office, by my silent desk of silent colleagues) and conduct an interview. The guys I spoke to had thick Tunisian accents. The phone kept cutting out. They asked me to repeat things. They asked me to shout. I shouted. It was awful.
The end of time – the end of dignity: I had to call them back sometime later (I lost track of time and my memory is still a little hazy from the PTSD) and repeat the entire process. Room still silent. Phone line still laughably (if this had been happening to another person, in another life) baaaad. Told by my editor to write up article by 4pm. No lunch break. Got it to him at 3.45pm, having spent the day in a manic, non-stop mode (I only realized this later in the day, when I heard myself actually GOBBLING instead of eating like a human being). Semi-happy with what I thought was a fairly decent first attempt.
The end of dignity – the end of my tether: My editor went away, read it, then got me to sit next to him as he fired about 3000,000 questions at me. The conversation went like so:
Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. Editor: What did they say about X? Me: I didn't ask them that. In a silent room.
The end of my tether – 6.39pm: I was then told to revise the article. No positive comments. I stayed til 6.50pm, again, everyone else had gone, just my magazine team there. In a rare moment of social outreach earlier that day, some guy had sent me an email inviting me to a welcome lunch. I replied saying I couldn't because I had a telephone interview, but could meet tomorrow. Another member of my magazine team emailed a reply saying I wouldn't be able to do lunch tomorrow because of briefings and put (I quote): 'very soon you will realise you only have a life on Tues and Thursdays.' I was there on Tues and I saw no sign of life, neither did I feel like I had one.
7.23pm: Missed my train home, bought a gigantic bar of Dairy Milk which I don’t even like, contemplated buying a Maccy D’s cheeseburger and decided to jump in front of a train. Cue five minutes looking around for a train to jump in front of. Owing to our shitty public transport system, they were all late/out of service/AWOL, meaning I had to accept extended time on the planet and the prospect of another tomorrow.

WHY I QUIT A NEW JOB AFTER 2.2 DAYS – A TRUE TALE IN 3 CHAPTERS

Chapter one: Silence, boredom and lumber prices

Day one - a lesson in human endurance and office-based despair...
9am-all day: Listening to the deafening, deathly, oppressive silence. I think I counted four words spoken in eight hours. Make that three actually - I think one was a sneeze.
12pm-5pm: Battling panic attacks about losing my vision, after attempting to read about arbitration. Stuff so dull I swear the words actually started leaping off the page, jumping, swimming and blurring before my bamboozled eyes.
12.05pm, 3.52pm, 4.07pm: Jumping in my (death-trap) chair at the rare sound of talking, only to slump back into a dazed depression as the words turned to lumber prices, expropriation, the ICSID, derivatives and, well I don’t even know what.
5pm-5.40pm: Watching the rest of the office trickle out between 5pm and 5.30pm, whilst my team continued to slave away over at their computers, having started before 9am. At least I was prepared for this (my editor had told me in a meeting that morning that: 'For some reason, our team always stay on later than everyone else.’) Hooray. I love being on the team that stays on unpaid later than everyone else.
6.30pm: Sent home 'early' because my colleague was too busy to show me the thing I was waiting to watch, which I’d already been shown earlier.
6.45-8pm: Train ride home. Notable only for my mood of doom and gloom and my sudden insight into suicidal and psychotic mental states. I didn’t even do pre-dinner food porn on the way home. That’s saying something.

Hacks and Hollywood

It dawned upon me today that being a graduate journalist is like being a struggling actor.

Though the two industries seem poles apart (one is glamorous, potentially astronomically well-paid, based on fantasy, the other is slightly scruffy, with teeny tiny wages and, ideally at least, based on reality) they actually share some common ground.

Firstly, as a freelancer, just like an actor, you have to become accustomed to rejection. I had my first taste of this today, after trying to sell an interview to the Observer Woman. I had spoken to the assistant editor over the phone and she sounded keen, asking me to email some more details about the article across to her. It all seemed positive. I duly did as told and shortly received a reply which said simply: "Thanks for this, but I don't think it'll work for us." Crushing. I felt like I had delivered my lines badly, or forgotten my script before the judging panel.

As my second point of comparison, from what I hear, everyone in LA is trying to be a film star. When you buy a cappuccino, coffee, pizza or glass of wine, the chances are that the person who serves you is one of these wannabes. In London, when you go for a meal or tarry out to quaff booze in some darkened bar, chances are that the person who serves you is a wannabe journalist.

At the magazine where I'm currently slaving away for free, I am surrounded by people in the same poverty-struck situation as myself, all of whom have second and even third jobs as waitresses to keep them afloat. As a fellow 'work-experience' girl said to me today: "Yeah it's hard having to work in the bar after working here all day but journalism is what I want to do, so it's worth it." I believed her; her eyes were all ablaze with a fervour and dedication verging on religious devotion. It was then that the actress comparison struck me again, since acting is one profession about which people say, 'Only do this if you can't imagine doing anything else because it's hard, unreliable and you may not make any money.'

It seems to me that the same can be said for journalism. Despite this, just like in the acting industry, there are unrelenting hordes of devotees willing to sign away their freedom, life, salary expectations and sense of self-worth, just to get a foot in the door. A former web-editor at the magazine told me recently that she didn't know anyone who hadn't worked unpaid for about A YEAR before they were taken on as staff by a publication.

Call me a broken woman but at this point in time, I can't help wondering: why do we do it?

Mind Your P's and Q's

I am one of those pathetic people with a compulsive need to be liked. It therefore crushes my soul when strangers commit random acts of rudeness. When this occurs (and it does, all too frequently) I spiral into a three-step emotional journey of bewilderment, hurt and rage.

Take this morning, for example. I was sitting on the bus when the girl next to me started fidgeting with her bag. Concluding that she wished to remove herself from the bus, I promptly rose to my feet and made way for her, generously flashing her a polite smile as I did so. Rather than make any eye contact, smile back, or even mutter 'thank you' in the style of well-mannered Londoners, she pushed past me with a scowl.

I sat back down feeling slightly shrunken and unsavoury and watched her figure recede as she stomped off into the chaos of Whitehall this morning. We all have bad days when we resent the close physical proximity with other commuters imposed on us by London transport but does nobody believe in manners anymore?

As I pondered upon this, I remembered my recent work experience at a popular weekly celebrity magazine. I had turned up all a-brim with bubbliness and journalistic enthusiasm, excited at the prospect of writing seedy exposes of the latest c'leb scandals.

When I arrived, I was given a thick booklet with 'Work Experience Job Description' on it, which listed tea making, distributing the post (and even opening the post, variety is the spice of life) re-filling the stationary cupboard and doing the office 'breakfast run' as my sole duties. In the first hour, I maintained a perky cheerfulness, delivering the post to each person with a little 'hello' or 'here's your post' or some other introduction, since according to my booklet; "giving out the post is a really great way of getting your face known in the office".

The problem was, despite my efforts at friendliness, nobody was even looking at my face. My face seemed to be an offensive foreign object. And my efforts at friendliness just made them more uncomfortable. Even when I lugged huge parcels from one side of the office to another for the Lifestyle team, no one offered any acknowledgment. It was if I was invisible, or at best, a slightly distasteful smell wafting across their territory. It made me wonder why people are so afraid of human contact and so suspicious of each other? Or is it just extreme laziness?

I came close to breaking-point on that first morning. I took a letter to somebody's desk, which according to my floor plan made her the rightful recipient of that post. She ignored my hello, looked at the letter and tossed it aside with a slight curl of the lip. "I'm not Juliette Readly" she snarled, without pointing me in the direction of the genuine Juliette.

As I walked off, I couldn't help muttering two expletives between clenched teeth. This was the only unmannerly outburst I allowed myself during that entire awful week. My restraint was tested throughout my time there, largely because of the general attitude of contempt displayed towards the work experience. Tasks such as the daily collection of the entire office's supply of papers and magazines (arm-destroying parcels which had to be lugged back to the 3rd floor of the office from a local newsagents) and having to pick up the editor's dinner at 6pm on a Friday evening also made me want to unleash some rudery but I somehow managed to keep a grip on decorum.

Taking positive action instead of taking a gun into the office, I called a talk with the editorial assistant and explained that I was there to gain journalistic experience and if I couldn't do any writing at all I would have to leave. This tactic worked and I ended up writing two articles which were published on the magazine's website.

Having graduated, I'm now back working for the online team (albeit unpaid, which I grant, is quite an impediment but seems to be the way it works) and have already had about twenty stories published on the website.

Proof that manners don't just make people happy, they also help to get your foot in the door.

A mannerly way of demanding payment for my labour? I'm still working on that.