Random Media Guy

One advantage of being an editor at a literary magazine was that it ended any conversation initiated by the question “So, what do you do?” with a single sentence. “Interesting” was the most representational reaction to my answer, if not the most common. “Bo-ring” was the most honest. (Yes, someone did say this to me once and I wanted to kiss her for it.) The fact was that that was what I was, and there was little more I could have said about the job that anyone asked, or cared, to hear. I have since discovered that from an employment standpoint the title of lit-mag editor is not a door-opener either, and the fact I was at it for so long only highlights my folly rather than marks me as a dependable, dedicated worker. Therefore it was probably inevitable that—while I waited for someone to glean general indispensability from my very particular resume—I would find myself cast into a variety of far flung endeavors over the year and a half.

In addition to my (as yet unpaid) editorial and fundraising work on behalf of Fifth Star Press, I have published a couple of short stories; rewritten a novel; compiled an anthology; assisted a professor of psychology in transforming a half dozen academic papers into a sort of professional memoir, which has since been accepted for publication by a prominent university press; enrolled in a training program called Chicago Career Tech, through which I have been placed in classes in social media marketing at the Tribeca Flashpoint Academy, as well as in an internship at Chicago Public Media, (WBEZ); and, on top of all this, I will be teaching a course in book publishing at Lake Forest College in the spring.

The practical result of all this is that rather than being able to tell someone what I do in a single sentence, I find my current situation impossible to summarize on a resume—much less to an acquaintance on the 147 bus. Indeed, looking over the preceding two paragraphs, I am reading how I spent my last eighteen months written down in the same place for the first time. That is primarily because I—as likely do most people—adapt each cover letter and resume to highlight one aspect of my experience, after pouring over the job description in order to pinpoint areas of emphasis. All of which is to convey to whomever picks up my resume from a pile of hundreds: "Trust me—you want me," at a time when the needs of those in search of qualified workers and those in search of work are apparent, yet automated human resources systems confound that recognition of mutual advantage.