This week officially marks the halfway point of my co-op. It has been three months and I have three months left.
It’s hard to believe it was only three months ago I was first walking through the Globe’s doors with a fresh-faced ambition to do great things and to prove myself. I think I’m certainly on my way.
One of the numerous tips I heard before going on co-op was to set goals for myself. And while I had some tangible goals, most of my goals were emotional or performance based.
My greatest fear was that I was going to hate my job. But I’m happy to report, that I don’t hate it. In fact I really like my job. It is not a job anyone could do for the rest of her life, but it is a job that is satisfying, challenging and different enough for six months.
Every time I can do a job well done on a project for my boss, I feel proud that I’ve worked hard enough to please the man upstairs. I am satisfied when I help a caller. I feel happy when I write a story that makes the people I’m writing about excited. And when I have the right answer I feel empowered to work harder.
The challenges have been daily hurdles and behemoth sized monsters trying to get in the way of my success. The biggest challenge is probably fighting the boredom. Some days are just very slow with not much to do, and finding a productive and seemingly worthwhile way to spend that time can be difficult.
Writing, surprisingly, has been my most frustrating challenge. Since I’m not writing everyday, or huge in-depth projects like I did for my journalism classes, my writing skills are slacking. I don’t feel I have a command of words like I used to. I think the fact that the stakes are a lot higher doesn’t help either. I am trying to improve and not get down on myself when editors take a hatchet to my stories. I’m trying to stay positive so I can take away something constructive rather than the feeling that I can’t do this.
And now to mention the monsters. I have taken the Globe company car out to a few assignments here and there to cover various stories. The first Friday in March I took a Globe car out to a high school girls’ basketball game. As I was coming back at 9:30, the car stalled on the very busy freeway with nowhere to pull over. I pulled over in the far right lane as far as I could, but I was still blocking traffic. I called 911 who sent a tow truck who took me back to the Globe, but then demanded $100. The security office who was supposed to take care of it started yelling at me to find the money, but it was now ten o’clock on a Friday night and none of my bosses were there. Eventually, the head security officer paid the fee from an emergency fund and they sent me home in a cab.
The incident shook me up pretty good, but it also proved to me that I could handle a problem like an adult. Don’t get me wrong, I still cried, but not until the security office yelled at me, and I tried calling my parents, who were out of cell phone range in Nebraska. It was all on me to figure out what to do and how to solve the problem.
The next weekend my phone broke and caused a whole new set of problems. So back to a flip phone I went and onward I marched taking care of my upper middle class, white working girl problems.
So for the next three months, I want to tackle my problems with the same gumption I’ve been showing. I want to be the strong independent person I know I can be. I don’t really have any other options.
So I’m halfway done, but I’m also halfway there to gaining everything I can from this experience and learning a little more about myself.
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