Dream, Interrupted: J-Schooler Punches Clock

[The Grad Wrap]

No sooner than the student loan bills began to arrive, journalism school graduate Leanna Moskowitz shelved her writing ambition. The University of Oregon class of 2009 grad moved to Portland in August with the hopes of launching an entertainment journalism career, but found scarce opportunity amid the recession.

She wasted no time landing a customer service job with Netflix, which satisfied her immediate financial need. However, it left her little time begin carving out her writing career.

Moskowitz's journalism dream still thrives, but in reality, life is getting in the way.

Jaymee R. Cuti: Since we last checked in, you landed a monetarily satisfying job at Netflix. What are you doing there and how is that working out?

Leanna Moskowitz: The job makes for good stories, as every good job should. A basic description of what I do is: one part lead novice computer users toward the future, one click at a time; two parts apologize; three parts count the minutes till my smoke break; and zero parts see the sun because I work graveyard. It’s all punctuated by the compulsive, sometimes scary but often heartwarming, over-sharing of the occasional lonely caller who "just wants to talk."

JRC: Now that you’re fairly acclimated to Portland, how’s the city treating you?
LM: I went out to a show during Musicfest Northwest. The club was really dreary and intimate and the music was rad. While I was at the show, someone broke my car window out with a bottle of rum, which has happened in every other place I've lived. So I guess it's kind of like an initiation when I move to a new home. There you go Portland, you’ve claimed my car window and now I am truly yours.

JRC: As you move toward a journalism job, what have you noticed about the local print scene?
LM: I haven't noticed anything because I haven't been looking; not even a little, not even at all. It's shameful to admit but I have been totally overrun by work and elusive sleep that I haven’t had occasion to really sit down with a good magazine or even read the paper in the last few weeks. I am reading the gnarly book about young fiction writers. I'm on page 40 and already the author has told me I'll never be a great writer in seven ways.

JRC: What has distracted you from the journalism pursuit?
LM: Last time we spoke, I was interested in getting an internship for a local publication. I looked into that more and found that internship slots for the music and arts were pretty hard to come by in this town. I found an abundance of hard news and reporting intern opportunity, but when you work 10 hours in the middle of the night, you have to really want the position to give up what little sleep you can manage during that day. With the stress of the job that I have—and desperately want to keep—and the weird hours that I have to keep, I just can’t see myself burning the candle at both ends for a position I'm not entirely interested in to begin with.

JRC: What else is competing with your desire to be a music and features reporter?
LM: Last week, the first of my five student loan bills came in and it’s $200 dollars a month. Repeat: That’s one bill at $200 a month. And I have five of those. And rent. And utilities. And a mouth to feed. The money I owe has put me in kind of a deadlocked position. I’m not in any position right now to reasonably shrug my responsibilities, give up my awesome job that may not make my heart sing, but certainly keeps my lights on, to "live the dream." [Netflix] wasn’t part of the ideal plan, but I feel fortunate that I have the job and the stability. I look at my roommate who has just been laid off and at my friends who can't find jobs that pay over minimum wage, and I know that it would be silly—even frightening—to consider not taking advantage of the certainty and stability of the work I have now.

JRC: How committed are you to sticking with the journalism industry in the long run?
LM: I still absolutely want to write. I think about it all the time and it is still in the life plan. I’m slowly getting my feet on the ground as far as loan payments and bills. I want to write but I see that, unlike my brother, the law student, there isn’t a set path for how to get there. You don’t just go to college and get the dream job right out the gate. Well, at least I didn’t. I have to look practically at the world I'm in and figure out how writing is going to fit.

JRC: How attached are you to being a Portlander?
LM: Portland, I love. I see myself here for a while. If life ever does slow down enough for me to delve into the j world as I hope, Portland will be the place to do it.

Check back every last Tuesday for developments in the life of a green j-school grad.