yesterday was an epiphany. i realized that i’m in the wrong line of work, and it’s time for a change. financial journalism has been good to me, both in terms of the people it has brought into my life, and in terms of the economic returns on my time, but i am just not feeling it anymore. i am not a person who believes in working nights and weekends constantly; in always being on call and never being able to fully commit to anything but the job, especially when i am working for a manager that takes every opportunity to cut me down and minimize my commitments. in short, i am letting the job go. not immediately, of course. i’m going to maintain the position until someone picks up the phone and calls me, but i have one foot out the door.
this morning, with the help of my loving and supportive wife shanima, i applied for four different positions that are way more suited to the type of work that i would like to be doing. we’ve got all our fingers and toes crossed and hope that the response will be positive. and now that the resume is brushed up and dusted off, and i have a solid cover letter template put together, i’m ready for anything that pops up.
truth be told, it’s been a really long time since i applied for a job. i did dabble in it a bit last year, but mostly that was for communications positions that were aspirational within the city government. i didn’t really put a lot of weight behind those, especially since i was in most cases very late in the game applying for them (some posts had been online for more than one month). prior to that, i have been recruited for the last two jobs i took, and so it’s been almost four years since i last sent out a resume and cover letter.
if my efforts bear fruit, i’ll probably talk a bit about that process, because in the past i’ve had a lot of success. but first i should make sure i’m not so rusty that i give bad advice.
in the meantime, i am going to keep going to work, keep doing what i am committed to doing, and not let the negativity that encircles me bring me down. i consider this a test, a challenge to my fortitude and resilience.
i will prevail.