Your Unemployed Daughter

photo credit: Chris Blakeley

Today, I’m going to give you some bad news when I give you your good news. It’s that kind of Wednesday. And you’re gonna like it.

Remember how M. Poppins once said, “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”?

I think she (and our friend Disney; yes, I am reliving my childhood) were on to something. Also: “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun … you find the fun and snap! The job’s a game.” (Wishful thinking?)

Anyways, on to my news, good and bad.

GOOD:
Here’s a job posting that I would apply for if I could, if only said job wasn’t located in Illinois. Signs are pointing to my being a NYC lifer. And that commute would be hell. But you guys out there in the Chicago area … do it! 30 percent discount? Mmmmm. Imagine the bargain bowl sets and bar glasses in your future!

If you feel that this doesn’t pertain to you and doesn’t actually count as Good since you also live in New York City and don’t plan to move, howabout the chance to finally perfect your British accent and get an internship with the BBC? Don’t tell me that’s not fun. A lark! A spree!

BAD:
This also in from Chicago, via Unity: Journalists of Color. Their 2009 Layoff Tracker Report shows that while the “general economy” (ie., not journalists) lost jobs at about 8 percent a month over the last year, we writerly types have lost our jobs by almost three times that. Ouch!

News media, including newspapers, broadcast, and digital, have shed 35,885 jobs since Sept. 15, 2008. The great majority of jobs lost—24,511—were in newspaper and other print journalism, Unity said.

“The news industry has been hemorrhaging jobs long before the economic crisis began last year,” Unity Executive Director Onica N. Makwakwa said. “These numbers confirm that the economic downturn has hit the news industry very, very hard.”

Need some more Good after that? I thought so:

GOOD:
Credit card programs, particularly those of Chase and Bank of America (who basically, like, own the world), are being revised to lower and even entirely eliminate certain fees! Cause, it turns out, there have been a lot of charges that customers didn’t even know about that were probably kinda unfair. This seems mostly to apply to overdraft protection. Ain’t they sweet?

BAD:
Alas, no more chilly nights snuggled up to my warm winter toffee-flavored cigarillo. Oh, and McKinsey tells Conde to cut budgets at the majority of their pubs by 25 percent. Which brings us back to Bad News #1.

GOOD: The army’s new top drill sergeant is a lady. Yay, and she’s tough, too!

She scored a perfect 300 on her semiannual physical training test last week, doing 34 push-ups and 66 situps, each in under two minutes, then ran two miles in 16 minutes 10 seconds (well below the required 17:36 for her age group.)

I don’t know about you, but I’m impressed. I am also still sore from kickboxing on Sunday.

Let me conclude with news that is both good and bad. Today is Bruce Springsteen’s birthday. He is 60. Does that mean that we are old—or that “Thunder Road” is? You decide.