Crasher

Oh, man...do I HAVE to have a job??

Okay, folks. I'll tell you all now that I am an
Olympic-caliber whiner where my career is concerned.
I'm so good at it, I should get paid to do it. I could hold
seminars about how to whine effectively, how to toe the
line of sympathy vs.lack of respect, and how to desist
right before someone calls a waaaaaambulance. I'm
THAT good.
Basically, I have a career that lots of people think is
really cool. And of course, that's because they don't
know much about it. I'm a newspaper photographer at a
smallish paper, and after five years, I'm very tired of it.
It's not glamorous, or exciting, or well-paying. Not in the
slightest. Yeah, I get paid (not much) to shoot pictures
all day, but honestly, it's not particularly fulfilling. I
photograph a lot of white guys in front of computers,
dorky high-school wrestlers, and stupid weather
pictures ("Look, it snowed!!!"). My free time isn't my own,
because I can be paged at any moment to go cover
something. Our shifts change constantly, so I can never
plan to take a class or anything that requires a regular
time slot available. I make such crap for money that I
can't afford to go anywhere on vacation.Top that off with
the fact that newspapers are too busy watching their
profit margins to operate the way they should, and that
few people respect what journalists are trying to do,
and you've got a pretty sucky career. Everyone's already
tried to convince me to freelance, work for a bigger
newspaper, move on to magazines, and any number of
variations on the photojournalist theme, but I truly don't
want to push the button on a camera for forty hours a
week anymore. Here's the crux, the existential root, of
my problem: I'm tired of spectating everyone else's life
all day. I don't want to be saying, ten years from now,
"Gosh, I WATCHED a lot of people do cool things."
But the overwhelming rock in my path is that I HAVE NO
IDEA WHAT ELSE I WANT TO DO. I've worked since I
was fifteen and supported myself since I was eighteen.
I know, cry me a river, but I'm just plain burnt out. I don't
want to work, period. I want to get an RV, drive around
the country and ride every great mountain bike trail I've
ever heard of. Yeah, baby!!!
Okay, that's not feasible, of course. So I went to a career
counselor. It helps a little. But I gotta say that nothing
lights my fire from a work perspective.
(I'd try to hook up with some rich guy, but I have too
much self-respect and not enough boobs.)
So I'm exploring some other career options, as
suggested by my friendly career counselor, but I must
confess that I'm going about it in a very listless way.
I'm looking into: marketing, art direction, photo editing,
and working on movie sets (shooting stills might be a
way to get in, then move on to something else). I'm also
interested in a lot of things in the sports/recreation field,
but there's very little money to be had there, and while
I'm not greedy, I don't want to live paycheck-to-paycheck
anymore.
But of course I'm lazy and hypocritical....I somehow
want some perfect job to fall into my lap with no effort
on my part. Just the idea of having to make a resume,
twisting my skills around to sell myself to some other
industry, makes me really tired.
I'm pathetic!!
Eventually I'll hit rock bottom or get laid off or
something, and then I'll be forced to do the work I
should have started a year ago.
So, I have my head up my ass. You should see the view
out my fly.
But....enough out of me for now. Next time...the deal
with Mike.
:)