Right on the very first day, I was pulled aside for a ciggie break and told that I needed to be confident .... Oh yeah, the people here smoke like nobody's business .... The stairwell is practically a smokestack .... They could smoke the roof down, man .... So, I just passively accepted the smoke, and the comment .... In all my years of working - yeah, ... years - with all sorts of people, there will come a time when you realize you just have to swallow your pride and take all sorts of remarks thrown at you ..... There are times when it's best just to shut up ....
.... Yeah, but how can I just keep clamming up? .... So, a few days later, I casually brought it up as they were going for a ciggie break, whether I was deliberately turning myself into a social pariah if I didn't join them on their ciggie breaks .... Needless to say, that remark didn't go down so well ..... Further down the line, I became a casualty of my own inanity with comments like, "Oh man, I really dig your joke, but I didn't know your parents passed away" .... Well, something to that effect ......
Not to mention the stupid questions ..... I just love stupid questions, 'coz frankly, I just don't know any better ..... Can't think of an example right now, put will post it right here if I can remember .....
(Don't know why I like to ask stupid questions though .... Probably it has something to do with my primary school education where I never really did ask anything in class, so now all the wide-eyed wonder kind of questions are coming out, like, "Oh wow, tell me again how that works?" ...... and probably the reason I never asked is because I never really liked school .... Used to go to the school early in the morning with morbid images like picturing the school going up in huge flames as I arrived .....)
Anywayz, if there's a lesson to be learned here, since I joined the press, is that reporters have to have thick skin (especially if you're involved in the media industry) .... This sage advice was shot point blank to my face by my colleagues during my first few days .... Point taken .... So, I will keep on asking the stupid questions, until I'm smart enough to know the ones that matter where my job is concerned ......
On that note, this job is a real learning experience for me ..... For one, I get to be a professional writer, what more can I ask? .... But man, the first copy I read with my byline on it ... is NOT my writing .... What, in the name of Arthur and the Legacy of Pride, has the copy editor done to my copy!!!! I don't write like that??!! Where are my beloved adjectives, and much-adored hyperbolic alliterative f**k-phrases??%#*^%& .....
*After a somewhat long sigh* Fine, go on, fix my writing ... Take out all the imagery I've worked so hard at all these years, to work in my writing ... and while you're at it, you might as well take out my byline and use yours .... But please, let me keep the sarcasm .... As a reporter, I think I need a little bit of that, don't you think? ....
Where my writing has been, most of the time, on a no-stand platform, now with this job, I have to, well, do factual reporting, and write it for a publication that's been established with its own set of audience .... I can no longer write for myself, which is basically what my blogs have been .... Now I write for the people .... And frankly speaking, I think the local audience could use with a little sarcasm and dry humour in their otherwise flaccid state of existence ..... But no, I didn't read sarcasm in my copy today, nor humour ... just dry ........ f**k, can I say f**k more? ......
Of course, this job offers multitudes of lessons on writing for me ... as it is, I could build on my writing, erm, prowess ... Well, Ernest Hemingway received a Nobel Prize for his super-reporting style .... You should also know that I've never really dug Hemingway's writings .... Stopped reading after, like, the third short story (short stories of an already economised style of writing, man) of his collections, and now the book is on the shelf gathering interminable dust .....
No, really, I do actually enjoy the challenges of having to write with angles specifically set for a certain group of people; write it brief, concise (OMIGOD! NO MORE long blathering sentences I lurve so much!) yet enjoyable on topics related to a subject matter on which I have little knowledge .... Of course, if I were to write professionally for a movie magazine, that's even more enjoyable, heheheeh .... but that's another day, another dream .... Let me build up my profile first, 'coz I want to learn every aspect of the press while doing this job ...
As it is, I see so much scope for my own learning curve .... I mean, I could just simply say no to the meagre wage they offered me, but please do refer to my previous entries on my own brand of work philosophy, if need be .... In the final analysis, it's all about liking what you do, and loving it (a certain global consumer brand has sort of relinquished their rights to that phrase ... Right about now, they're coming after me) as well as the people you want to be with .... It's as simple as that ....
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Added 11/07/2008 - And the stupid question is when I had to use the Mac for the off stone .... I was sure I was going to fumble it all up and lose at least one page, and my colleague, thanks a lot, had to give this warning that if I did lose all that copy, we had to start all over again, and if that were to happen, we would never go home that day ..... I just hate that .... Everyone, and I mean everyone, from school mates college mates, to colleagues and close buddies, friends and strangers alike, will be able to sum me up and say things like that .....
Anywayz, I didn't want to lose anything, so I very carefully used the Mac to make corrections .... So at one point, I wanted to save one page, but just wasn't sure how to do it, so asked another colleague (the one that gave that warning left me flailing by myself while he went out for a ciggie break, go figure) how it's done .... She went to click Edit on the menu bar, and then clicked on Save ..... I think I stood there, just dumbfounded, then laughed stupidly ..... Oh well ....
Taken from: http://www.thewe.cc/weplanet/news/forests/clock_ticking_for_indonesian_rainforest.htm
Slanting skinny tree on the right: Hey dude, up for a smoke?
Skinny tree on the fore at left: *hacking dry coughs, and with a raspy, almost inaudible voice* Thanks dude, I'm good ....
And while I had been stuck in the midst of writing a story, somehow other ideas popped up .... But I have to say, I am quite naive about being thick-skinned in this industry, aren't I? .... It's all back to the people you work with ..... Why does it matter, BJ? It's complete waste of space, not to mention precious brain matter, to bitch about these people ..... The funny thing is, I happen to like some of them .... but I don't think they really see that ......
Just in case, on a need-to-know basis, I write for a very small section of a small local paper .... Nothing fancy schmancy .... My editor would blow a dragon's worth of hot air at me if he were to read this, but they don't know this blog .... *looking paranoid* or do they? ..... More importantly, do I really give a rat's ass? .....
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