Outsourced

Outsourced

With the economic crisis, it is very rare to walk through Manhattan, tell people that your degree is in communication with a focus on journalism, and then be told that you have chosen the perfect career path and that many jobs are opening up. The awful truth is that journalism is on its death bed, undergoing an agonizing execution in which it is kept breathing only because companies are willing to hire on the cheap. This either means that companies are hiring very few people to do many, many tasks at decent proficiency, rather than many talented crew members who can bring a wealth of knowledge in a variety of areas—or that companies are outsourcing.

According to USA Today, in 2008, MediaNews Group CEO Dean Singleton suggested that “papers should explore outsourcing in nearly every aspect of their operations.”

Well if news outlets are going to be outsourcing… then I have made an executive decision for myself…I am going to outsource myself. So with that, I bid adieu to New York City, to the United States, and I embark, in two months, on a trip to Italy in which I hope to first excel in a four week course that will grant me the certificate which makes me completely marketable as a teacher in Italy and to second: find a placement in Rome, the city that I considered to be my home for three months in 2008.

Things aren’t going to be easy. In fact, finding a placement may be very difficult seeing as the EU rules are very strict about who can and cannot work in Italy. However, life is not easy now: for instance, my apartment isn’t perfect—and I am not sure it will ever be a perfect apartment…I sleep on the floor, a dog sleeps in the kitchen next to me which makes my fan blow lovely dog scents my way each night, and the living space outside my room is small. In addition, I currently am unemployed—call it a casualty of the economy and recession, or just call it plain crappy. So leaving uneasy—to go to well…possibly more uneasy isn’t really scaring me away just yet. I am reminded by my peers and people I look up to that I am young and that this is the time to take chances and see the world, even if it doesn’t work out the way I planned. A good friend even noted not to worry that “America will always take me back.”

But with outsourcing my services and self to another country, I hope that I am able to make future contacts and employment opportunities past my hopeful year of employment as an English teacher. Seeing as I did not go to school to teach and how I am the oddball female of the family (My mother and sister are both English teachers…sheesh), it is my full determination to find a job internationally related to communications and media. So while America may always take me back—I am not sure coming back is what I hope to do.

The results of all this is that I may not live on more than a low income for many years of my life and I may not live in a big old mansion overlooking Lake Eerie or Lake Michigan, but I will be dedicating my life to living out what I want to do…in the places I want to do it. It’s time to make mistakes, and be happy with those mistakes…and with that I say: Bon Voyage.