I had a ‘clear’ image in my head when I started at the City Times as a cadet reporter: camera, words, action!
What could be so difficult?
My first day on the job left me clueless.
I walked into the office and saw that there was no camera in sight – only telephones, computers and desks.
The ‘clear’ image had disappeared into thin air.
“Why on earth are there telephones?” I asked myself.
As a born and bred introvert, I wasn’t prepared to make any contact or calls of any kind to any human beings, without first having a two-hour counselling session.
I immediately plotted 50 thousand escape plans, as I watched my new colleagues be journalists.
Journalists, I later found out, make many calls – more so than they breathe.
They also do weird stuff like fact-check and have to spell out a name to the person, whose name they are spelling.
Unfortunately, escaping wasn’t possible as I’d already signed all sorts of agreements.
There was an overwhelming amount of things to adjust to and if the daily diary meetings were anything to go by, I stuck out like a sore thumb with my lack of experience and knowledge.
After a series of story-typing and camera-snapping, I slowly gained some wit about what I was doing (I no longer needed two hours’ counselling; just one and-a-half).
It became increasingly manageable – conducting interviews and writing stories.
There was the dreaded weekly survey however, or in journalism terms, the ‘vox pop’.
If I could adequately describe my experience with these, I would liken it to being hit by a truck with knives sticking out of it – painful and unnecessary.
It included approaching strangers and having to convince them (and myself), that they should answer my question and then I would have to drop the bombshell, that I need to take a picture of them.
What a daunting task!
I now have newly-found respect for salespersons, because I’ve shared in their pain of rejection from cold humans – and I still bear the emotional scars.
It’s also worthwhile to mention that there were always bouts of joy I would receive, from the people who wore smiles on their faces and would gracefully agree to help a sister out.
This is what I’ve gained from working for the City Times: developing a thick skin and doing everything to the best of my ability, even if it means leaping right out of my comfort zone.
In this time, I’ve moved up from being clueless to having just an inkling of an idea of what a “journo” is.
I have my colleagues, my editor and Benoni to thank, for my first job being the best and I still have so much ground to cover.
