My boss, the Ukrainian hunter

Let’s get this straight –my accounting job is nothing to write home about. Against all odds of having an MFA and never having budgeted my own money, I am doing quite well in my job. In fact, my boss loves me. “I really hope you stay on,” he told me. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t share the same sentiment.

The tasks are manageable and challenging in parts of my brain that have lain dormant for years. Balancing invoices can actually be quite stimulating, much to my initial disbelief. I can’t say I care for the world of PR -too much jibber-jabber, gratuitous canoodling, and insistent espousing of the most mundane products. But I’m left alone for the most part, and so I’m content. The real treasure of that office, though, regardless of the virtues I keep overhearing about Campbell Soup, is my boss.

Sergio is a writer’s dream character study. He appears as a meek, unassuming man in his late forties, hidden behind a pile of paperwork. He has gentle eyes, a thin grey beard, and he mumbles a lot. The first day I met him, he rambled on about the company in a low voice, in a tone that told you he was resigned to a way of life and didn’t really mind it. “But you know they treat me well,” he said. “Yeah, they do. Otherwise, I wouldn’t work here and I’d just stay home and I dunno, eat berries.”

It’s because of awesome statements like that, that I’ve grown very fond of Sergio. Last week I noticed he had a Mr. Potato Head in his office. I commented on it, and he pointed out the paper cowboy hat on the smiling potato. “That’s not his original hat,” he shared. “A co-worker brought her daughter in one day and the little girl lost the hat while playing with Mr. Potato Head.” (Sergio actually looked frustrated by this.) “He was sitting there on the window, by the sun, and I figured he would get sunstroke, so I made him a hat.”

Sergio also likes me because he married a Filipina. I asked him how they met and he told me they had met through an online dating site. “I tried it on a whim, you know, since I’m not the type to go out to bars or anything. Anyway, I got matched to my wife in the first week, which was a free trial week, so I didn’t even have to pay anything!” he beamed. They married three years later and now have two beautiful toddlers.

But the most surprising thing about Sergio is that he is an avid hunter. Beyond that inoffensive office demeanor is a man who can track wild animals and skin and cleave them with his own hands. Every weekend of hunting season, he and his uncle head to a cabin three hours upstate, near the Appalachian mountains, and hunt deer. That’s not the best part –he actually hunts with a bow and arrow. Not all the time, he tells me. Right about now it’s the season to hunt with one of those old-school, one-shot rifles. You know, the kind they used in the Civil War.

If that’s not cool enough, he gave me some venison last week. Deer he personally hunted and butchered. He even gave me a hand-written recipe on how to cook it. “I’m so glad you’re willing to try it,” he told me. “Most people get squeamish when I talk about deer.”

“Hey,” I said. “I’m from the Philippines. I’ll eat anything.”

Sergio smiled at me with his kind eyes. He probably doesn’t know it, and he’s probably chronically fatigued from the loudness and disingenuousness of a Manhattan PR office –he may not know it, but I get him.

In this Interim

Meanwhile, I couldn’t possibly go on without a steady income. I approached my temp agency and told them I’d take any three-day gig, so long as it allowed me to keep my internship schedule.

A call came right away: “Hey, Janine. I have something for you. It’s not a writing job, but it’s a part-time position and has a flexible schedule.”

“I’ll take it,” I said without missing a beat.

A pause on the other end of the line. “It’s in finance.”

“Okay…” Hey, if my agent thought I qualified, that’s all the assurance I needed.

“I really wish I could get you a magazine job.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said flatly. “There aren’t any.”

As it turned out, the job was as an accounting assistant at a PR firm by Madison Square Park. I’ve been working there for the last month.

The Ease of Compartments

The Monday after learning of the layoffs at ForbesTraveler.com, I walked into an empty office. There is nothing sadder than cleaned out cubicles that used to exude the relaxed pose of job security. There is nothing stranger than learning of forty-hour weeks that must be reinvented, of lives that must be reshuffled all at once and all on their own. It is frightening to realize so much of us are expendable.

And strangely enough, I -the unpaid intern- become more valuable. Without a staff, the two editors left to run an online magazine had only the interns to rely on. Short of folding, the only staff left were the managing editor and the editor-in-chief. There were suddenly more interns than paid staff, and the bare minimum to run a website such as Forbes Traveler required a photo editor and a web producer, both of whom were laid off. “We need you now more than ever,” they said to us.

It’s true that we could have left. After all, nothing had been promised to us, and suddenly we were tasked to take on bigger responsibilities –still as unpaid lackeys. But I stayed because I took a gamble. It was an opportunity to step up, to become more than an editorial intern, a position rotated every semester with a limitless pool of bright-eyed young writers willing to work for nothing two days a week. If I played my cards right, I thought, I could actually land a job as an editorial assistant. All the senior editors were gone, but there was still writing and editing to be done. So long as the magazine didn’t fold, I was convinced they’d hire from below, and what could possibly be lower on the totem pole than I?

I was ready and willing to be an essential part of a luxury travel magazine.

The Absentee Blogger

It’s terrible of me, I know -to start a blog, only to neglect it so quickly after. It’s difficult to write about a situation, about a state-of-mind really, when it’s constantly shifting. In the last month there have been cataclysmic changes in the landscape of job-hunting in New York City, and the tremors have reached me, especially with my unsteady footing.

Too much has happened to contain everything in one post, so I’ll take a few stabs at making sense of what’s happened and creating a kind of peace with where I’m at.

It’s the Media Apocalypse

Surely you’ve heard that the U.S. economy has been nose-diving for months now, with no foreseeable end, and that companies everywhere are either closing or laying off workers in massive numbers. The media industry is one of the most hard-hit, especially magazines, because who needs wonderful variety and niched interest publications when the basic structures of society have imploded?

What does it mean to be an aspiring writer in New York now?

It means work on that goddamn book-in-progress because there are no magazines that’ll hire you. Hey, it’s New York. You either live with harsh reality or you pack your bags.

So many publications have folded -probably some you even read- and not even the biggest titles are safe. To name a few: Radar, Men’s Vogue, Conde Nast Portfolio, CosmoGirl… Layoffs have been happening across the board, typically 10% of a magazine’s staff. It’s terrifying, and no company’s safe.

Just today, I heard that most of the staff of ForbesTraveler.com has been laid off. I have been doing an unpaid internship at this online magazine since August, knowing full well that they wouldn’t offer me a job at the end, but hoping for the chance to freelance with them and for leverage in the industry. Two days ago my first article got published on the site, a fluff piece on the show “Lipstick Jungle.” Yesterday NBC canceled the show, leaving my editors no choice but to take down my article which had become irrelevant in 24 hours. The day after, they fired most of the staff.

After I got my master degree in May, I knew it was going to be difficult landing a paying job in New York’s highly politicized magazine industry. Today it’s close to impossible, and I know I have to reassess my plans to survive in this cut-throat atmosphere.

It’s dismal out there. All those cliches about New York? You better make damn sure you’re made of the right stuff if you’re going to last in this town.

La Dolce Vita? Try “no”

My marathon gig for the Dolce & Gabbana sample sale started at 5am on Sunday. That’s two travesties right there.

I woke up at 4a.m., just in time to see my roommate arrive, strangely enough, from a 2 Live Crew concert. (Anyone know or remember them?) Apart from some drunken stragglers, the outside world was dead and goddamn friggin’ cold.

I can’t tell you much of what happened on Sunday, because it was such mind-numbing, infinitely tedious work. As 30 temps went to work organizing the quatrillion items of clothing, bags, shoes, and accessories -I’m not kidding, there was one quatrillion of them- we found out that 50 people working with their own organizing method does not an efficient system make. It was like one of those games where you undo everything somebody just did. It would have been funny if it were set to some rag-time jazz and played in fast-forward (like Modern Times!), rather than the sexy house beats pumping through the cluttered studio and the painful creaking of time.

By 9a.m. we had to overhaul everything we had already done, by 2pm my feet were ready to burst open, by 5pm my fingers were trembling from finger-spacing hangers, by 5:15, I went home. I understand the vitalness of having all the hangers face in the same direction, but you see, my fabulous bosses, each time you move racks around, an underling such as I must work on repositioning the direction of those precious hangers.

Which brings me to this message of import. A letter I worked on, in my head, during the two days -setting up and opening day- in which I have been a peon of a particular high fashion Italian label.

Dear Mr. Dolce and Mr. Gabbana,

Buongiorno!

I am pleased to make your acquaintance. I am also pleased -and slightly flustered- to learn that that Dolce & Gabbana is not the same as D&G. Oh no. The latter is akin to an uglier, awkward little sister. She cannot possibly be as luxurious as your eponymous name brand, because she is about ten times cheaper than you. And through transposition, of course, you are ten times more fabulous. At least!

Now, I never considered myself a philistine of fashion. As Miranda Priestly put it, the turquoise in your haute couture line will eventually trickle down to my fast-fashion wardrobe. I respect that. I do not, however, understand a few concepts, which are probably too lofty for my thrift-store tastes.

First of all, that fully sequined light pink (salmon?) colored blouse. It costs $22,000, and as far as I can tell, its effect is either that of a sparkling peacock or -worse?- looking like you’re wearing nothing at all, but just “shining.” Good work, by the way, on the strategic placement of the peacock eyes. Still, twenty grand? I’ll have to think about that.

Next, that skirt that looks like hair. Human hair. $10,000. I just don’t think it’s a good deal.

I had my qualms about the black&white cow hide jacket, especially its price tag: $8000. But you know what, I saw a couple of people pick up the jacket today. Personally, I would go for the matching skirt. Less going on on top, you know?

Finally -I know there’s some crazy shit there (admit it, I bet it’s fun to fool the rich)- but I learned about astrakhan today, and I just have to put my foot down. NO. There is no good reason to purposely induce sheep abortions so you can use the fetus’ hide for a rich person’s jacket. That’s just horrible. I love meat and I am willing to allow fur (I’m sorry, the coats are just so fabulous, just don’t kill off a species), but this astrakhan business is just insanity. Besides, the fabric’s not that cool anyway.

So as not to leave on a bad note, I am happy to report that today, as on every first sample day sale, that Russian lady came in and bought at least $100,000 worth of clothes (after your generous discounts). You know the woman, the one that looks unfortunately feline.  She had her own personal attendant guarding her two-and-a-half racks chock-full of the most expensive, flashiest, and most ridiculous items in the store. And what stamina! She was there at 9a.m., and bless her heart, shopped until the doors closed and us temps went home at 8pm. 

That’s all. It’s been a trip so far.

Ciao!

Janine

How do you spell Ga-bahn-na?

There’s a scene in the movie “The Devil Wears Prada” where Anne Hathaway’s character, on her first day working for Runway magazine, takes a message over the phone and says, “And how do you spell Ga-bahn-na?” I thought that was one of the funniest scenes in the movie.

As you can imagine, my slot in life right now isn’t too far off from that kind of cluelessness. I too got a call from Dolce & Gabbana (that’s how you spell it), though indirectly. A temp agency called me and I agreed to pretty much what you’d call slave labor. I’ll be staffing D&G’s sample sale next week, a scenario in which women who can still afford couture line up at dawn to madly scramble into a store with pre-release designer items when the doors open. Not convinced that’s hell enough? The gig is 80 hours in six days. That’s 13-15 hour days. And while I wasn’t stuck with a runner assignment, I have been tasked to be a cashier. Umm.. my employment agency must think highly of me. I haven’t handled money in so long because I haven’t had any of it. I’m not sure I still know how to count.

Still, it is an honor. I am honored to get a bulk sum of money at the end of this ordeal. I am honored to pay rent, finally. I am honored I know how to spell Gabbana.

You gotta take what comes your way. That’s why for the last two months I’ve been giving free labor to a travel website which will remain unnamed in this blog (to feed into my paranoia). It’s not a bad gig, except for the part where I do actual work and NOT GET PAID. It’s the only way into magazines though, and I’m learning stuff. Lately I’ve been sent to a couple of cool events where I have wasted no time in alienating every magazine editor I meet.

“Hi! What magazine are you with? Cool. So…. how do I get a job there?”

I figure I have nothing to lose. Unless of course my boss happens to check this blog. In which case, Hi! I really liked your green sweater the other day.

Last night the event was at an Italian boutique on Madison Ave. God, I miss hors d’oeurves and free booze. When I worked for magazines in Manila, I had croquettes and canapes and champagne, like, every other day. Now you know why I am adamant about working for a magazine.

The event photographer -a lush, gorgeous man with dark, wavy hair and big brown eyes- asked  if he could take my photo with one of the event hosts. I instantly picked up my glass of bellini and smiled. The photographer -beautiful man that he is- laughed loudly. “Most people,” he said, “instantly get rid of their drinks when I ask for their photo, but you instead picked yours up.”

I’ve got a lot to learn.

In the meantime, please to enjoy a couple of birthday photos. The first one is me and my visiting brother at dinner, pre-drinks. The next one –the Jack Sparrow hat says it all.

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

I may offend you and I may lose your friendship

… but this just elicited such a strong reaction from me. If you are one of the Filipinos who seriously believes that McCain should win over Obama -that is, if you even care about global politics- as reported by this Gallup poll:

-make sure you read to the end-

then, please, I no longer want to know you. You know why the Philippines never moves forward? It’s because it’s full of racist idiots, which I hope you are not one of, who have no clue as to what’s actually going on in this world.

And if you actually think Sarah Palin should be vice-president of the most powerful country in the world, I am ashamed we ever got into the same orbit.

That’s the first and last time I’ll get political, I promise.

The Great Bailout of 2008

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know the global markets are tumbling faster than I can down birthday shots this weekend (the big 25 coming up!). In a scramble to fix this crumbling capitalist empire, America’s bailing out some of their biggest banks. But no! That is not the Greatest Bailout of 2008. It’s not even the case of Iceland, which last I heard the government was ready to file for bankruptcy. No, it is –and I say this with great flourish– my parents giving me one more month to live.

“I’m bailing out my favorite depressed charity,” my dad bellowed over the phone (yes, he is a man who bellows rather than speaks). “For your birthday!”

Twenty-five years after life’s little miracle appeared, my parents have decided that I am worth at least another month of not being homeless and hungry.

Thank god. I was literally down to the last $100 in my account, with no viable work options. YES IT IS PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE FOR YOUR FORBEARS TO SAVE YOUR ASS WHEN YOU’RE ABOUT TO BECOME DESTITUTE.

Their generous present actually just buys me a few more weeks. I’m hoping the magic number of job applications is 1000, because I must be pretty darn close to that.

Oh, the lure of shady practices. I interviewed to become a personal assistant for a hedge funder recently. I had a bad feeling about it, just from the guy’s emails, and my suspicions were confirmed when he said he wanted an “eye-candy assistant” who would do some “light cooking” , “play hostess at his parties” and “occasionally -if you’re good with your hands- massage my back and neck.” The scary thing is, unless I say it out loud and elicit disgusted responses from people, I don’t pick up on how degrading his requests actually are (No offense to personal assistants who like giving back rubs to creepy finance shmucks for $15/hour.). My senses are shot -sometimes I wonder if I can still tell up from down.

New York’s such a mixed bag of characters. The other day I saw a storm trooper nonchalantly walking through the market at Union Square. Today I passed a man in a sports jacket crossing an intersection, simultaneously shaving his chin while walking. You gotta multi-task.

Sorry for the lack of coherence in my thoughts, and sorry for my inability to commit to a blog. Not the best of times.

25 -woohoo!

“I am applying for this position because…”

I suppose I should begin by bringing you up to speed with my present predicament. I am, at this moment, awaiting a phone call that will determine whether my ass is saved and I no longer have to deliberate on what morals I am willing to compromise for a quick buck (…I have nearly figured that out!). This phone call would be from a book producer looking to hire an editorial assistant. How perfect, right? Career job, salaried part-time position, cool midtown loft office. During my interview with him a few days ago, he said: “It’s

scary how many qualified people there are out there.” Yes, he said that. He also told me that I am in the top six of 150 people whose resumes flooded his inbox the day the job post went up; they had to take down the listing right away.

The sheer number of people competing for jobs in this city is seriously frightening. I estimate that I’ve applied to about 750 jobs since May -full-time, part-time, temporary, unpaid internships, one-day gigs, telecommuting work, you name it. Some of them I got (mostly gigs), a bit of them I scored an interview for, and the vast majority just ignored me. And oh it surely doesn’t help that the US economy just happens to be collapsing.

But -I promised not to bitch. After all, if I concentrate really hard, I can imagine myself as an impoverished-but-all-too-endearing artist living through the Great Depression, knocking on doors and wearing funny hats, saying, “Please, sir, won’t you give me a job? I’ll work really hard, I promise!”

Why not, right? I already own the funny hats.

I’ve come so close to several jobs I -at that time- really wanted. I feel like the perpetual bridesmaid. If I could only make a career out of being a runner-up for jobs. It belongs in this list:

JANINE’S LIST OF JOBS SHE WISHES SHE COULD MAKE A LIVING FROM:

1. professional muse

2. fabulous, just fabulous

Has my maniacal ego taken a blow? Sure as hell. But it’s all right, I have lots to spare. I can take one more day of jumping every time the phone rings and obsessively checking my email, only to never hear from a prospective employer again. No one ever said making it in New York would be easy. In the meantime, I gotta grin and bear it and send out another 750 applications.