I Got the Job.
I liked working night shift, so I quickly got a job selling hot dogs at The Original Hot Dog Shop – otherwise known as “The O” in Oakland, Pennsylvania, home to Pitt and The Electric Banana. I’d often eaten there after a long night of drinking and couldn’t imagine a more fun place to work.
I was mistaken. I slipped and slid on floor grease for three long nights, and then I simply disappeared. Night shift wasn’t as fun at The O as it had been at The Pennysaver.
So I bought a Sunday paper and typed dozens of cover letters and envelopes. My degree in communications (with no internship) was useless, but I typed 90+ accurate words per minute which, before computers, was a highly marketable skill.
I was hired by a local temp agency. I could choose which jobs I did, each lasting only a few days.
But I wanted to write, and the only way I knew how to get paid to write was to become a journalist. So I sent my resume to The Gazette, a local newspaper, and was thrilled when they called.
My interview with the Gazette editor was very exciting. I showed up and did my best to convince her that I’d eventually become a star reporter if only she’d give me a chance.
“What sentence would you write about a group of people at a courthouse rally if there were 20,014 attendees?” she asked. “Say you wanted to let readers know how many people were there without giving an exact figure.”
I considered the odd question. “I would say, ‘More than 20,000 attendees rallied at the courthouse.'”
“Oh good,” she said. “Too many people use the word ‘over’ instead of ‘more than.’ It’s just not right.”
“Oh, I can’t stand that,” I said.
We bonded over the misuse of “over” and I was hired as a news reporter for The Gazette.
I couldn’t believe my good fortune. All I had to do was show up in the newsroom, check the wire, and write. I would use older articles from my drawer as “background” for my story, and usually only had to draft a couple of paragraphs to create a full “new” story.
The news was dreadfully dull. I went to council meetings to cover city budgets and building renovations. Sometimes I’d unearth community outrage, and sometimes I interviewed people about their jobs for “feature” articles.
Features were my favorites. I could barely stay awake for the council meetings, but I sure did have fun being a reporter.
It was a bit challenging to get used to the schedule. Unless I’d scheduled a morning interview, I was at The Gazette from 9:00 to 5:00. Every day! Sometimes I would pretend I had an interview so I could sleep late and show up as though writing a feature.
No one caught on.
After three months of this incredibly fun job, I slept too late and didn’t get to work until noon.
When I arrived, the office was abuzz with excitement.
I headed for my desk but the editor directed me into her office.
“Where were you?”
Uh-oh. “I was interviewing someone but they never showed up.”
“For three hours?”
“I was supposed to meet him at 11….” I said, trailing off.
“Then you should have been here at 9,” she said. “There was a bank robbery this morning in your territory. It was your story.”
“Oh!” I said. “I’ll go right now and….”
“Someone else covered it,” she said. “You’re fired.”
The following week, I was back at the temp agency begging for work.