Pattern recognition

Ahoy there. Indeed, it has been many moons since I have bothered to punch out some roman characters on this here keyboard and "update" this blog. I continue to exist. Oxygen is extracted from the air, which I fill my lungs with. In turn, my heart is able to pump more blood to my brain, allowing for thoughts to be processed and, perhaps, words to be expressed. So here I be. Miss me?

My life has reached a state of "severe normalcy" again. Sometime last fall I evacuated British Columbia's northern reaches for the drier, more populous climes of the southern interior. This was in order to take a job as a journalist at a larger television station than the wee one way up yonder. The desert is a decent place to live, although Smithers was magically delicious in its own little way. I do miss the alpine hikes. Ah, the hikes.

4 months into my new job, and again I am 'waxing introspective'. If it sounds familiar, it is. I've only had 2 full-time jobs in this ever-so-unlucrative industry, but I seem to have found a pattern in my feelings of job satisfaction, and in many ways, self-satisfaction.

Living up north, I recall hitting a point somewhere around the three month mark where I stopped enjoying what I was doing. Not so much the actual "journalism" part of the job, but the "working" aspect of it. Work became a chore that needed to be tended to, a routine that needed to be fulfilled, a hoop that required jumping through. I had to feed the machine what it wanted, even if it was done in haste and without great care or interest. The station was a sausage factory, and the sausage was made out of 90% bullshit.

Instead of being what it could be...work was just THAT---WORK. The well of journalistic inspiration began to dry up, and personal/ethical frustrations regarding the company I worked for began to become my daily focus. I spent more time apathetically complaining about the shit conditions, pathetic salary, and disorganized organization I worked for than I did actually doing what I was there to do--to learn about journalism, to be a part of a community, and to tell stories with interesting pictures and sound.

So, with a bit of the work I'd done up there slapped onto a resume DVD, I managed to land another job and moved my life. I came here with a plan to learn from people who know what they are doing, or at least who knew more than I thought I did. Thankfully, I now work with a number of people whose work I respect, both journalists and photographers/editors.

What now bothers me and breeds 'dread' in me, is that I am 9 times out of 10 assigned stories that I have no interest in. Very often these are "perennial-type" stories, predictable things that would make any consumer of television just fucking GROAN out of sheer boredom. The kind of stories where you watch and ask "Why are they even doing this story?".

REAL ESTATE MARKET BOOMING IN THIS REGION!
-We talk to boring talking heads in suits about how great real estate is.

NEW FEDERAL GOVERNMENT POLICY MAY AFFECT LOCAL HOSPITALS!
-We talk to egomaniac politicians from different levels of government with differing but ultimately innocuous and vague things to say about it.

This kind of shit just drives me batty.

The answer to "why we are doing the story": because many days the boss is too uninspired to look for interesting or *gasp* NEW things to cover: and just ends up finding stuff that can get done within 2 hours and will fill air for a few minutes.

There is a strange, political heirarchy in the newsroom, and communication between the "minions" and the "bosses" is almost discouraged in lieu of a blind acceptance of "who is boss", the one who obviously knows better--or at least it seems that way.

So I see a pattern emerging here. As life resumes normalcy and stops being an almost-traumatic learning experience, I am left high and dry with myself, unwilling to completely accept the basic constraints of this sausage factory industry.

Let's face it, no matter what job I have, there will always be a negative aspect to it. The choice seems to be to find those nuggets of positivity, those moments of learning and personal/career fulfillment, and to focus on them rather than the arduous, mind-numbing shit that I hate doing.

Sadly, I haven't been able to maintain that perspective yet, and don't see it happening too soon.

And like a little cattle prod constantly reminding me of what else I could be doing... there's always this little voice in the back of my head wondering if this is a sign to find another, perhaps better job and move on.

Air continues filling my lungs, and blood keeps on pumping. I sleep, eat, shit, type, and occasionally speak. Tired of complaining. Now back to life. Thanks for reading. Nice to be back on the matrix.