Sometimes... scratch that. Many times, after all the crap's been thrown at you, you just know a thing or a version of it isn’t going to work.  But, because you don’t want to have to later accuse yourself of being a pessimist, back then, you stick around to see this thing to its end. 

After a very miserable day or more, he (the laptop) was up and running. There was some damage and I’d lost some of him- but at least he was still there. And, that’s all you could ever ask from a person…or laptop. I could finally turn my attention back to tasks at hand, namely, earning a living and trying to decide where I would go from here.

Being a staff-writer could make life easier for me.  It would give me a name, in addition to my own, to utter when I call for an interview. It would add a bit of urgency to my calls too. Many interviewees always seem to feel so much safer and more pressed to supply information when they have a name of a media outlet rolling around in their ears.  (One of my friends once noted, with some bitterness, that she was no longer a person as all of her life, even after she moved on, was reduced to being “the girl from <input name of media outlet here>”.)

So there was that- and the matter of a sure salary awaiting me at the end of every month.  I wouldn’t have to count the rare sick days as “lost days”. There was some security to be had here. And freedom. For, they were still a young company- and so not yet firmly set in ways of doing things.

On the other hand, there was something to be said for not being strictly aligned to any of the major media outlets on the island. It could win you trust from interviewees who are suspicious of the major names.  There was also the question of the professionalism of this new company. If the contract debacle was any signal of things to come- all signs were saying “run”.  Moreover, there were one or two little things that struck as less than honest.  Like management popping up near each month's end- just before I send off a nice freelance bill to ask, “so, you are staff writer now, yes?”

Then, of course, was the fact that I wasn’t too keen on joining any organization with the knowledge that an unequal bulk of work- features and hard news- would fall upon my shoulders.  And there was also the minor matter of the treatment of other freelance writers, who were with the company prior to my arrival.

I wasn’t really decided either way…yet. I’d alerted the new editor/manager to my woes and all the missing elements which didn’t make me, an employee they were trying to woo, feel very encouraged. This scored me a meeting with two members of management.  So, I decided to be open-minded and let the outcome of that meeting decide things for me.

Coming Next Tuesday: #32- The End?