Is journalism a satisfying career?

coming from a guy who's on your side: learn to pick your fucking fights.

your, "everything sucks because of JRC" is growing a little old. if you are that miserable, quit, fucking quit. two-week notice, a fuck you, a suck-my-dick jelloneck, whatever. just fucking quit already.

but stop dragging the rest of us down. we know JRC sucks monster donkey cock. fuck, 85 percent of us agree with you, but fuck oh rover, address something, anything else other than JRC in a non-JRC thread. fuck, stop, stop, stop.

 

Obviously, people do not know what they are missing out on...

 

I agree, I'm freaking addicted to my job. I love all the different aspects of it and the writing is icing on the cake. I've never had a job I enjoyed as much, in spite of having to deal with insane prep parents from time to time.

 

Tom -- I hate to say it, but I agree with lapdog this time.
Now before I get ripped apart for agreeing with him, I don't think we need the JRC tirade, but he has a point.
If you have management who is willing to work with you, appreciate new ideas, and not go out of their way to make things miserable, journalism can be really satisfying. Which is what lapdog said.
If you don't, you start to get disenfranchised very quickly.

 

As someone once said, you go, cancer.

 

Here's the thing - As long as I concentrate on my goals, and getting better as a writer, then hell yes, journalism's fun. But when I get distracted by the corporate side (especially the "encouraging" emails sent out by higher-ups to give us hope that profit margins are improving and a "bright future" is ahead), the politics, the self-righteous-backslapping-"look at us, aren't we great", delusional attitudes that are exhibited, then I get frustrated, and I often feel like it's not worth it.

 

I think I derived more satisfaction at it when I first started out at the small daily in my hometown when I was in high school in the '60s. Did everything -- reporting, writing, layout, photography, burning picture engravings on the old Fairchild (anyone remember those things?).

The things I do now are things I would hardly let myself dream about back then, but I don't think I enjoy it as much as i did when I first started. Maybe it was the newness of it back then. Now it's just a job, and a rather aggravating one at that because of all the changes in the business. It's not as much fun.

 

I chuckled when I saw "roofers" was on the low end of satisfaction. After 10 years in the biz, I resigned as SE in March for a lot of reasons, but mostly to shift gears toward something else. I freelanced for a few months, thinking I'd be able to land a PRish/writing job in a nearby metro area by the summer. Well, it was late May, the freelancing was drying up as school was coming to an end, and I needed money. So I called a buddy who worked with a roofing crew and asked on.
I'm not the least bit mechanically inclined, but I was desperate. The pay was good (100 bucks a day under the table), but of course if I fall off a ladder, I'd kinda be screwed. Anyway, after nearly a month of doing it, and getting better at it, I have grown to enjoy it. There is a certain satisfaction of seeing your work slowly take shape and then completed. But I'm only (hopefully) going to do this for another month or two. I can't imagine it being my steady line of work. The body aches, the balancing acts at high altitude, the early mornings (6 a.m. start times) and the precise nature of the work are enough to make me long for remaking the front at 11:50 p.m.
My tan is pretty sweet, though.

 

I don't think so, except in very small, discrete doses -- like when a reader actually praises one of your stories. But I'm also not sure I'd necessarily be satisfied with any of those Top 10 careers.

I'm a teacher's kid, and I don't think my mom was ever satisfied with her job... until she retired and didn't have to deal with the kids (or the adminstration) anymore. I have a couple of friends who are published authors, and they're <i>never</i> satisfied. In fact, they seem to always be trying to find the next great idea, or writing pages, or editing them, or waiting to hear back from someone about something. I'd rather be a journalist, because at least my deadlines are much shorter-term!

Has anyone considered a career change to the clergy? :

 

I'd say I've been very satisfied in my career 90 percent of the time. I was born into newspapers, kinda (my dad was a deliverer), so I can't imagine doing anything else.

 

I think this kind of work is what you make of it. If you spend the whole time thinking about the long hours and shitty pay, yeah, you'll be miserable. But if you try to concentrate on the uniqueness of your job, being about to do something you are passionate about and meeting tons of interesting people, it is very satisfying.

 

Just to add to what TP said ... I DARE you to go somewhere better. I DARE you to prove to everyone that someplace better wants you on their team. You do that, then your rants will have a lot more juice behind them. But I don't see you moving.