Breaking Routine

May 23, 2009

Aside from going back to school, I have another good news to share.

I’ve been contemplating for almost a year, realizing how my life has been stagnant for the past 5 years. I do not want changes in my life, especially when it was in its peak—usually. Dropping from Ateneo Law almost 6 years ago was painful, especially as the circumstances have dictated it, and not laziness and incompetence. What else to do but to find a job?

And I landed myself a copy editing job. I really enjoyed the 6 months of training. It took out much regret on having to leave law school. It was interesting to “master” the rules of grammar, to know proper use of punctuations, and to spot common errors. I also learned to be attentive to details as extra spaces translate to errors. I am very thankful for that training and for the experience as these taught me a skill that comes in handy, even how to avoid grammar errors in this blog. But years of copy editing hundreds of articles became a routine, and in the past year, it oftentimes bores me to death.

And for the past year, I’ve had several interviews from different companies. I almost got one, being approved by the US clients and the US boss, but was somehow hindered by the US recession. There was one multinational company with a base in Switzerland that called me for a senior web writer position. They liked the articles I sent them, but noticed the lack of leadership experiences. What was I to do? Copy editors don’t get promoted. There wasn’t even a senior position. Finally, a company located in Eastwood decided to hire me as a web content copywriter. Weighing so many things, I finally decided to decline the offer.

Being a copy editor isn’t such a bad job. Indeed, many colleagues love what they do. I am very glad for them. But I am not one of them. Everything slowly became mechanical for me. I became mechanical, always racing with time to accomplish my target number of pages for the day.

This week, I was no longer a copy editor—at least not for a month. Monday was the start of being a quality improvement specialist, well, at least the start of training for it. I haven’t had training or new responsibilities for the past 5 years, not even sales training or personality development. I have reservations on whether I am fit for the job. I have no experience on conducting training needs analysis or in creating trending reports. A “jolt” from someone and the support of my close copy editor friends and former manager drove me to try this position. After all, there’s the on-the-job training to help me learn the tasks. So far, so good.