Light at the End of the Tunnel
Sometimes things tend to happen pretty fast and before you know it, you see a light at the end of the tunnel even though that tunnel seemed to be quite long and dark. In my case, that light is a new job I applied for only last Friday before going to Budapest to see Nine Inch Nails live. Upon returning, I found an email in my inbox containing an invitation to a job interview, and this interview was scheduled for the next day (Tuesday, July 28th). The interview went pretty well and before I knew what was happening, the editor-in-chief of an upcoming travel magazine said “We want you on our team, what do you say?” Of course, I declined the offer… yeah, right 
As if… The job sounded so interesting and intruiging that I agreed to take it even though it means I’ll be a freelancer for a couple of months. But since I cannot afford to turn down any offers and since the editor-in-chief also told me that there’s definitely a chance of getting a full-time-contract I would have been mad to turn that offer down. Now all that remains to do is to figure out how much I’ll be paid and, most important, if I have to pay for insurance myself. I really hope the latter can be avoided – I was a freelancer years ago and paid 3,000 euros per year only for insurance so in the end I was basically working for the insurance company (damn you, SVA!), with not much money being left to spend. We’ll see how this will turn out in the end; for now, I’m really happy that I can work again and since I’ve never been around when a new magazine has been launched, this will be quite an experience – being able to contribute to a brand-new magazine, being able to come up with ideas and shape the magazine. And if I’m really lucky, I’ll probably get a long-term-contract based upon the “Kollektivvertrag” for journalists, meaning: fixed income with automatic raises every year and 15 salaries per year 
Hooray! Working again!
Finally: The search is over. Last week, I’ve had a call that I’ve been accepted on a job I had applied for, work started on Friday, May 2nd. It feels really, really good to be part of the “working class” again, especially since it’s a job I hadn’t counted on. See, I had applied for it in January and never heard anything at all – until two weeks ago I received an e-mail out of the blue asking me if I was still interested and would like to show up for an interview. Of course I was still interested and had time for an interview which turned out to be really nice and made me feel very comfortable. Five days later, I received the call that I had been accepted. Of course, I was on cloud number 9 for the rest of the day – and I must admit I fell into some kind of shopping frenzy (you do need new clothes and shoes when starting a new job, right? 
)
After only two days on the job I have a feeling that this will be not only fun but very rewarding and challenging as well. I never thought that I’d work for a customer magazine, dealing with cooking recipes and articles on wellness, but you can never foresee what the future holds in store for you, can you? We’ll see how this turns out in the future but my guts tell me that it was the right decision to accept this offer – not only because the payment is a lot better than on my last job but also because the people I’m working with seem to be very nice and the job itself seems to be, as I already said, very challenging without overtaxing me by asking too much. I’m glad I’ve had almost five years of experience in journalism so now I’m ready to take on more responsibility. Hooray!
