Dream Job From Hell

The dream job from hell, was how my roommate described it, and to this day I find the description fits. Time hasn’t changed the fear and disgust that went with working with that man, in fact, it’s only intensified it. By the same token, I’m grateful for what may have been my one chance to travel overseas.

Before the DJfH, I had had an internship at a local TV station, and unlike so many such jobs, I actually got to do some real-life work there. Most interns at the other stations in town were relegated to menial and demeaning tasks, occasionally called upon to help someone in the field if there was a particularly distasteful job to do.

But I got to write, which I loved, and I learned to write concisely. A five-second promo spot takes special skill, and I became very good at it. There are numerous factors that go into writing that sort of thing, selecting the compelling stories, the rate at which the anchor delivering the spot speaks, and the quirks of the individual anchors (one, for example, couldn’t start a sentence with a word beginning with “W” — which is problematic for five-second promos. If you pay attention, you’ll hear so many start like this: “Will your taxes…?” or “Who is planning…?”).

My supervisor took note, and when he started his own business, working with television stations in Europe, I jumped at the job offer he made. Of course I’d been looking for full-time, permanent work for over a year when he spoke with me, and the combination of so badly wanting to work in my field and the glamour of traveling overseas blinded me to a few, in retrospect, glaring problems.

First, he had a drinking problem. A bad one. Second, and this one almost got me arrested in France once, he had a drug problem. A bad one.

And third, fidelity in marriage meant nothing to him, and unbeknownst to me until we were on foreign soil, he expected me to jump in bed with him as soon as we were in a new city. Which wasn’t about to happen. He was a good-looking man, but I say that with distaste, because it led him to expect he could manipulate women, which he did. Repeatedly.

I quickly refused to work with him, and quit that job. Soon, however, a colleague I trusted came up with an alternative plan, one that would keep me from working directly with this man but would still allow me to travel some.

That lasted a fairly short time. It simply wasn’t going to work, and the company was floundering to boot.

Still, I got to see Athens, with my hotel room overlooking the transparent and brilliant blue sea. I spent time in Nice, Marseilles and Paris and fumbled with the French I’d studied for six years (I never did get particularly good at understanding others speak it, but I was much better with my own foreign language speaking skills after this misadventure). I saw Hamburg and Munich and cathedrals throughout Germany

More important than all of that, I learned a lot of discretion and any number of valuable truths about life that some people, I’ve discovered, never figure out. I know the signs of trouble with married men, and I know nothing is as glamorous as it seems.

And I learned a lot about people by getting to know them in other cultures. The light shines on different areas when you’re not in your comfort zone, and you come to appreciate the sometimes hidden qualities in those around you.

I wouldn’t do it all over again, but I’ve learned the worst experiences can have solid results, things that shape and change you and make you a better person as the years go by.

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Image Credits: (TV set and Eiffel Tower) © BigStock; Passport © stock.adobe.com