We Are Judged By Our Jobs, And Those Jobs Play Hard-To-Get

Amazing how we self-identify — and are identified by — our jobs.

I was recently at a networking event in New York. This was an unusually friendly, open group of people working in, or looking for work in, media. Luckily, I have a part-time freelance gig to attach to my introduction. Many others were “between adventures,” “seeking new opportunities,” and all those other platitudes.

The word is unemployed. Or underemployed.

The industry is changing. Less and less people are buying magazines and newspapers, preferring to read their Facebook and Twitter feeds. They give the same credence to what their “friends” forward and news that is vetted and fact-checked in traditional media.

We were fishing for work in a Midtown Manhattan bar. It could have been horribly depressing but, luckily, this was a soft-drink swilling, laughing group of photographers, editors, writers, press people and instructors. One seeker went to the same high school as I did, in an obscure corner of New York City that most people have no reason to visit.

I used to be identified as working for the massive company that employed me for a long time. It seems glam unless you are there in the trenches. When that ended, who did I become?

I wish us all well. Who knows if I’ll learn of any living-wage jobs from networking but I do know that changing out of my jeans and getting out there increases my chances.  You have to get off the couch, out the door and be open to whatever happens.