What is a “real” job anyway?

Since I started my internship at the National Post last week, family from all over the country has been congratulating me and asking me about the future of my career. (Mostly on Facebook, but that’s because I’ve been posting the links to my articles on my profile almost daily.)

Although I tend to be a little too modest in person, I’m more than happy to receive praise from them online. What I hate, however, are the questions about my post-graduation job.

In less than a month, I will be finished my four years as an undergrad. As I mentioned last week, I’ve already lined up a post-grad job at TalentEgg.ca as the editor of its new online career magazine, the TalentEgg Career Incubator.

I’ve been working part-time from on that project for a few weeks now and I absolutely love it and I can’t wait to devote to it the time and energy it deserves and needs to really get off the ground.

Being an intern takes up most of my day right now and although I love many aspects of journalism, there are times when I truly hate being a reporter. I hate it the most when I have to be aggressive and part of The Pack.

The Pack is a group of three or more reporters crowded around an interview source in a public place, like a political office, a court house or an event. We have to chase people down who often don’t want to say anything to the media and who are probably intimidated by all of us shoving microphones and voice recorders in their face.

I had to do it on Thursday while covering a court appearance by two local businessmen accused of murdering one of the men’s uncles, and again on Monday when I was shipped up to Vaughan to cover a closed-door meeting at city hall. Both stories were short and neither contained much news, but they were the two most stressful stories of any I’ve written since I started at the National Post.

Now, I’ve known I didn’t like this type of reporting since Day One, but I’ve had to suck it up to get through journalism school in one piece.

Meanwhile, I can’t wait to work on the Incubator when I get home each night and I really enjoy doing it. But sitting at my computer doesn’t make for very good stories to tell family and friends.

So, inevitably, I get asked the big question by well-meaning friends and relatives: Do you think the National Post will hire you when your internship is finished?

Well, no, I say. The newspaper industry is, for the most part, cutting jobs, not creating them. And the company which owns the National Post (and most of the large media outlets in Canada), Canwest, is in financial trouble.

As much as I love having my work published for purely narcissistic reasons, I’m graduating at possibly the worst time ever for journalists. Almost every seasoned journalist I’ve talked to since I started at the Post is watching their back, and for good reason.

Besides, I already have a job. I don’t know if I could turn TalentEgg away if something like a reporting job at the Post came knocking. And, if I did, it wouldn’t be for the right reason.

That reason would be that I feel pressure to have what the middle-aged (or older) people who are extremely interested in my life consider a “real” job. Many of them don’t even understand what email is. When I try to explain what TalentEgg is and what I do at the Incubator, they just don’t get it.

And I think some of them would rather see me choose a job in a dying, somewhat backward industry which they can identify with than a role at an online company. They don’t say it, but I can see it in their eyes and body language as we go through the conversation.

I have no plans to ignore my own feelings and desires, but it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about since last week. And it’s something I’ll have to come to terms with.

Have any of you chosen something your family or friends don’t consider to be a “real” job? Would you?