“Oh, get a job? Just get a job? Why don’t I strap on my job helmet, and squeeze down into a job cannon and fire off into job land, where jobs grow on jobbies!”
-Charlie from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”

I like my chances at finding a job better than for Charlie, my favorite character on Always Sunny. I’m literate, for starters, though sometimes I don’t spell like it. I also don’t habitually huff spray-paint or subsist on cat food while living in squalor (yet).

While Charlie’s only career skills are doing “Charlie Work” like scrubbing urinals and killing rats, I’m pretty proud of my academic work and experience. I won’t be doing “Charlie Work” if I can help it, but I’ve been thinking about the things I would do. My conclusions and subsequent career directions have changed quite a bit in the last year.

For instance, I had a pretty exciting interview this morning for a position I probably would’ve scoffed at back when I thought only in terms of “good guys” (newspaper journalists) and “bad guys” (nearly everybody else, except for kittens and orphans).

READ ON…

In undergrad, I spent a lot of time mocking the broadcast students as they lugged their heavy tripods out of Martin Hall and scribbling inverted-pyramid stories about the campus police for The Daily Athenaeum.

A few years later, I’ve shot video packages and enjoyed it. I’ve followed the Federal funds rate and understood why it mattered. I’ve tried to dig into social media and even written a tutorial for SQL of my own free will.

Most significantly, I’ve embraced the idea that I’ll probably never work for a newspaper again. And I think I’m OK with that.

Things seem a little brighter when you accept that your life might not turn out exactly the way you’ve always planned. Or when you realize that there may be opportunities in things you always thought of as Charlie Work.

Or that’s how it seems to this Master of Science. And Karate. (You knew it was coming.) And Friendship for Everyone.