Are you a 'good news first' kind of person or a 'bad news first' kind of person?
Well, I like my good news above the fold, so I'm going to go ahead and say it. I got a job offer, and I'm taking it.
I decided a while back to leave my job as a print news reporter because the salary it provides, along with the pay my wife gets for teaching, adds up to us being the world's two least successful gold diggers.
In seriousness, the money wasn't enough even after trying to tighten the belt in every way we knew how -- and we're better than average at saving and saying no to things we want. Besides that, there's the little boat anchor, Droogie Jr., to think about.
A little about the job: The company makes trade publications for specific fields, and I will be an online editor for one of these publications. It will give me an opportunity to learn more about Web design -- something I've never done before.
It's a business-to-business writing job, so I will no longer be serving the public as a reporter. While I will be doing interviews and writing stories, I'm not really comfortable calling myself a journalist of any sort in this job -- at least not based on my current understanding of the job duties.
More good news -- not only did I get the money I asked for, but I actually got significantly more than that, which is something I've never even heard of. I'm not sure whether I just look that fucking good in a suit, or if I'm just a genuinely impressive professional. Or maybe they were just motivated to fill the position. Who can say?
What's the bad news? I'm taking this job, but that may mean that we'll be seeing less of each other for a while. I can't say how much time I'll have to spend on Daily Kos within the forseeable future.
For one thing, I don't know what the workload will be or how I'll be able to manage it. For another thing, my managing editor appears to be a bit of a wingnut. (Well, give him time. He might not be. But he definitely has no love for the environmental movement, I can tell ya that right now.)
In any case, I dread telling my current employers the bad news. It's never easy to leave a job where there's no real lull in the workload. The news doesn't stop, so it's not like there's a lot of downtime.
While I have my issues with the publisher for firing 17 of my friends on the spot without so much as a severance package, I know that the bosses closer to me who know my work had no say in that decision, and it's going to be hard to let them down after they trusted me enough to let me work for them in several different capacities over the years.
But I don't have to think about that until next week. Right now is a time for celebration for my family and a time for thanksgiving to all the people who helped make this possible, including my parents, my brother, and most of all my intelligent and stunning wife and the little boy she and I made together.
I also want to thank all the individual Kossacks who came forward to offer me information and leads other job possibilities, including SteamPunkX, Something the Dog Said, mspicata, ILean Left, The Termite, iconoclastic cat, Indexer and so many others. If I've forgotten you, I apologize, but this is one special community.
And of course, even more of you offered help in the form of simple encouragement or a kind word or a story of similar hardship. I can't tell you how this kept me going to know that there was such a fine group of people out there rooting for me. I hope someday I may be as talented as some of you think I am.
I look forward to getting started. It sounds like a very involved job. I hope this isn't a "Stone of Triumph" type situation, but I don't think it's more than I can handle.
In any event, this will mean a lot for our family and will help us raise Droogie Jr. in a more economically secure (as well as happy) home.
Thanks again for all your support. Be seeing you.