Chance and
circumstance, rather desire and design, opened the door to journalism.
 |
| Confucius - "Find a job you love and you will never work another day in you life." |
Traditional
academic endeavours had personally reached their pinnacle in Year 11 as they
seemed irrelevant, but beyond, that and probably even more importantly, family finances
wouldn’t have permitted anything beyond what was then matriculation.
In what was
one of life’s random serendipitous moments, Echuca’s Riverine Herald newspaper
advertised for a cadet journalist; I applied and won the job.
Journalism
was, to me, and absolutely unknown beast, I had no particular interest in
writing, reading had been foreign to me, but it seems I had the one vital
ingredient for what makes for a journalist: an insatiable curiosity.
Despite a
few sojourns into other industries, journalism has been at the core of my
attention for more than 35 years.
Many people
have, throughout those years and in a hierarchical sense, been superior to me
and so afflicted some authority, but never have I had a boss, not at least as
it is understood in contemporary terms.
My “boss”
has always been personal, despite the fancies of those supposedly in charge.
Control has been leveled at me by privately-held values, morals and intent
along with sensitivity to the greater good of whatever community it was in which
journalism was the focus.
That all
sounds somewhat high-minded, but journalists who get the job done, need to stay
in touch with the passions and interests of those they are writing about and
for, rather than the somewhat brutal growth driven wants of the modern
corporate world.
The idea of
actually working for those you serve, your customers (readers in journalistic
terms), rather than any individual superiors or a company, can be a difficult
paradigm with which to align yourself, and even more troubling for those in a
top-down authoritarian structured organization.
With the
world becoming more economically fragile the truly liberal (note small “l”)
organization is becoming rarer and many growth-based structures are despotic or
totalitarian in outlook.
Many
workplaces are pock-marked with strikingly difficult internal politics; an
insistence on growth that might offend sensibilities both within and beyond the
company, and to further enrich the drama, there is the criticality of abiding
by company philosophies to ensure the security of income, in other words
avoiding the sack.
Divided
loyalties induce stress and personal wellbeing hinges on reaching an individual
intellectual position in which individual wants and needs are in accord with
the broad ambitions of your employer. That, of course, is easier said than
done.
Work is not
about your boss or your company; rather it is about you, social interaction, your
community and your customers, and if we take the advice of Confucius: “Choose a
job you love, and you will never have to work another day in your life”.
