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female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes: Hi everyone, I desperately need some career advice, or really just some reassurance that I shouldn't take this personally.Last year I studied to be a journo and excelled! I'm in my late 20's and before starting the course I'd been working in admin jobs for the past 10 years. I was sick of the soul-destroying boredom and wanted to do something to challenge myself.. I was also sick of the political games and bullying. I put everything into my course and won multiple special awards, including Most Outstanding Student. At the end of the year, there was no work in the field and I landed an admin job immediately before even finishing the course. At first, the plan was to wait for a job opening, but then I decided to put my heart and soul into this job and see what opportunities might come out of it. It's in real estate and there was (well I was "promised" there would be..) advertising opportunities in the pipelines.I've been there for six months and I feel like all the faith and confidence I'd gained from last year's achievements has been destroyed. Although I'm front of office, my boss assured me I would have autonomy and be able to write advertising and design new systems. I feel like nothing more than a general servant and office goafer. I feel utterly useless every minute of the day. Being at the bottom of the food chain (once again), I feel that no matter how hard I work, I can't even make a DENT in the piles of work left on my desk. No matter how hard I try, I can never get up to date. I am responsible for handling all email problems for all eight branches, all photocopying issues, cleaning and vacuuming the entire company.. and half the time I spend doing work for agents from other branches because their own administrator says they're too busy to do it. I'm back to that same ol me I wanted to escape. I've never been an assertive person and have trouble confronting people in difficult situations. Why do I take on this role in any admin job? I was bullied all through my school life and could never stand up to those girls.. and it seems when I'm an office full of women, the same thing happens and I hate that I turn it in on myself.I realised tonight that I'm disliked by pretty much every administrator in the company because another one of them wanted MY job but was turned down when they chose me. While I'm working my butt off, I hear the bitching going on around the office.. they make comments that they don't know what I do all day.. and generally treat me with ZERO respect. My boss ignores the cattiness and doesn't take it on board, but they also CC him little emails when they're bugging me to do something. The fact I can never seem to get up to date, no matter how hard I work, makes me constantly question my own abilities.. yet in one of the most demanding industries i.e. journalism.. I topped my class and my work from last year is being used for this year's students to work from! I made international news during my internship with the local regional paper here as well.What do you do in this situation? It seems that the girls I'm working with don't bother to do much, but make comments implying I don't cope well with the workload or they don't know what I do all day. Truth is, my boss made me email and photocopy administrator and I spend most of the time fixing problems in the system, or helping other agents. I pride myself on being a team player and getting in there and getting the job done. Yet I feel like the only one in this company.. and I get NO support.. there's NO teamwork.. and there's NO loyalty or trust. My boss is a nice man, but a TERRIBLE leader and would rather avoid issues than help me deal with this kind of thing.What would you do in this situation? Would you tell them to stick their job and go after a job in a newsroom as soon as one appears? Would you fight for the job and confront all these bitches and play them at their own game? Would you talk to your boss and tell him what's been going on, knowing nothing will change? I don't want to just run away, but I don't see this job is going to utilise my real skills at all or even help me progress anywhere.Please help. Thanks for reading.
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female
reader, chigirl  +, writes (25 June 2010):
 Stick to where you are for now to have a source of income. But don't put your heart and soul into it. This admin job is now to be considered your job nr.2 Your first job is as a journalist. Do free work on the side, or write articles and then sell them. You don't need a steady job in journalism, many simply write and get paid per article, writing for several different newspapers or magazines etc. So get yourself in the game and do what you love.
However, keep a job on the side, because in the beginning journalism might not bring in enough money... Stick to your job until you have established a good reputation as a journalist/enough contacts and know you will be able to live off of what you make as a journalist.
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