Oh what fun...

I don’t like being a reporter. I like writing, I like being paid to be curious, I like that my time is flexible, as long as I do the work. As a curious person I love that it’s actually my job to be nosy when I see something going on, that I get special treatment (sometimes negative) when I call up the people in the know to find out, on behalf of the public.

My job is very slack but none of this makes up for what I’m learning I dislike about reporting. I hate cold calling people—never been a big fan of talking on the phone—and trying to weasel my way in to talk to people who may not want to talk to me. I absolutely despise being a public figure and having to care about what people think of me and having everyone paying attention to me all the time. I hate stretching a non-story into a story because there’s a hole in the advertising.

I hate having to write objective stories about crap I hate or disagree with, have a moral objection to or have less than no interest in. I hate re-writing press releases and golf scores and having to be careful about not offending the wrong people.

People might say oh well that’s just there, but it’s not, it’s the same in most small towns and realistically most of the type of jobs I’m likely to get are in small towns where the Editor doesn’t want to piss off their advertisers and other important people – i.e. almost everyone who would normally be in the news.

I hate sitting here whining like a 13 year old girl in her My Little Pony diary but I fear I just spent years and a fortune getting into something that isn’t any better than the crap I’ve been doing for the past 15 years. Same pay, same cow-towing to authority, same dread of going to work in the morning…same shit, $40,000 poorer.

It also scares me that this isn’t an internship or a temporary thing, nothing else to look forward to, this is supposed to be my career now, and apparently I don’t like it.

Just spoke to Robyn briefly online. She was complaining about how boring Kamloops is, which I did plenty of when I was there. Now, looking back, I can’t imagine how or why. A town full of friends and books stores and restaurants and movie theatres and places to walk other than 30 minutes around the flat square and live music and rock trivia and house parties and a swimming pool and hot tub and gym and magazine store and coffee shops and more than one supermarket and video store and a some nice parks and a ski hill and a few hours from all kinds of cool places and and and…

Anyway a shout out to all those still there (Lisa, Ross, Jeff, Robyn, Meghan, Kelly, Sarah, Sophie, Tara, Marcel…Joe…Marcello?, don’t know where he is, Lailani?…) even though Tara’s probably the only one of those who reads this. Also to the few that have to go back (Scott, Chris, Jen…?) who are probably hating the idea though I’d give my right arm for it at this point.

It also really sucks not being able to chat online since I developed that habit over the last two years and expected to keep in touch with everyone that way. Enjoy the big city (which I used to think of as a tiny town) while you can guys, if you get a reporting job you’ll almost certainly be in a smaller town – not as small as this mind you, but smaller than da’Loops.

Funny I really did always think of it as a smallish city, a distant 5th in B.C. behind places like Victoria & Kelowna, Nelson, a 6th the size, has a better selection of restaurants and live music etc, but then you get out here and see Kamloops is considerably larger than Alberta’s 3rd largest “city” (Red Deer) and I retroactively appreciate the city amenities Kamloops offered. Red Deer is smaller than Chilliwack, which felt like a small hole when I was there last summer – not to degrade either of those towns, just putting things in perspective.

Anyway I don’t know why I’m rambling, avoiding going in to work, for my 6th weekend in a row. I gotta figure out a way to stop hating this career—fast—or I’m going to do something drastic which will make it difficult to get a job in this field again.