The New England Patriots

They’re just so gosh darn easy to hate.

When we moved here more than a year ago, I realized part of trying to become a Bostonian meant accepting part of the culture here. While a lot of it was easy (and, frankly, the reason we left Florida for New England), I have been extremely lax in one area: liking the New England Patriots.

My entire family, me included, were already huge Red Sox fans before we even thought about leaving Bonita Springs for Boston, so adjusting to that part of New England sports culture was simple and easy. As for the Celtics and the Bruins, I estimate 75-85 percent of people here don’t really care about them, unless they are winning a championship. But that leaves the New England Patriots, the gosh darned New England Patriots.

Although not nearly on the same level as the Red Sox, people here love the Patriots. I’m sure it has something to do with them being one of the best 5 teams in the NFL over the past decade, but the Patriot games here are a major event, even for people just watching on TV. Now, I watch a lot of professional football, but I’ve never had a strong allegiance to one team, mostly just individual players scattered throughout the league. When I lived in Florida, I rooted for the Miami Dolphins and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers because they were the home teams. I didn’t live and die by their wins and losses, but I wanted to see them victorious more often than not.

In the true spirit of becoming a Bostonian, I wanted to do the same with the Patriots.

The task has been very daunting. While I wouldn’t consider myself a fan of any professional football team, I definitely had the teams I love to hate, like the Cowboys. And the New England Patriots were on the top of that list. The freaking tuck rule game. Bill Belichick and his cheating ways. Their quarterback from Michigan (There’s nothing a Buckeye loves to hate more than a Wolverine). Three less than stellar Super Bowl victories. One spectacular Super Bowl loss. That self-righteous swagger that just didn’t seem to fit.

But last year, I decided to put all my old hatreds aside and start pulling for the Patriots. I was surrounded by Patriots fans, so I figured it was time to see things from their perspective. It was tough, very tough, but made easier by the fact that I didn’t regularly interact with any die-hard Patriots fans, and because the Patriots were without their starting quarterback last year. Instead of being the evil Imperial Empire led by Emperor Palpatine and his Darth Vader from Michigan, the Patriots were this plucky team with an above-average coach and a back-up quarterback who hadn’t started a football game since high school. Even still, I was secretly pleased when they didn’t make the playoffs, even though I thought it was crap that an 11-5 team was shut out by the NFL.

This year, though, liking the Patriots has been significantly harder. Tom Brady is back, so New England is ripe again with Brady swooners who hail him as the second coming despite his stats and subpar playoff output as of late. The first week of the season, the team won a game it should have lost to the Buffalo Bills, which was tough since a very good friend of mine loves the Bills. They underachieved against teams like the NY Jets and the Denver Broncos and lost. They’ve beat up on some good but not great teams. They lost to an Indianapolis Colts team out of sheer arrogance.

But the worst part about trying to become a Patriots fan has been listening to the die-hard Patriots fans. Every win is a sign the team is a shoo-in as Super Bowl champs. From every loss stems a tide of excuses. While most Pats fans I meet in person are likable enough, the worst has been listening to sports-talk radio. Now, I know talk radio isn’t an even-keeled slice of a populous, but listening to 98.5 The Boston Sports Hub is maddening. These people are so gaga over this franchise that peaked five years ago that it is disgusting. (And this is coming from an Ohio State Buckeyes fan, and until I moved to New England, I thought no one fawned over a team like a Buckeyes fan). I once listened to a radio conversation in which all the listeners and the hosts were asked to pick the top  football players/coaches/owners/general managers, etc. to start a new franchise. In an almost unanimous response, the hosts and the listeners picked the New England head coach as No. 1, and the New England quarterback as No. 2. You’re team has been subpar for five years and blew a chance to be the only team ever to go 19-0 for a season; and you think you have the two best football people in the whole world right here?! C’mon!

Least to say, my path to fandom has been long and hard. I just still love rooting against the Patriots. I take so much joy out of seeing them fail and cutting down the myth that is the New England Patriots; and I take so little joy out of seeing them succeed.

I wish I could be a Pats fan; but, right now, it’s impossible.

My Boston Tattoo

Desmond.

I love my son. I loved him from the moment he was conceived, through the witness of his birth, right up to him smiling at me just before I left for work this afternoon.

On Friday, I was lucky enough to find a way to physically express my radiating feelings for him to the world, by getting his name tattooed on my right forearm. To make money for the $100 tattoo, I picked up an extra shift at my waiter job and put the proceeds toward my son and me. It took longer to put together than when I had my daughter Maggie’s name tattooed on my arm, but it was well worth the wait.

As a bonus, my Desmond tattoo gives me a permanent connection to Boston.

In addition to what the tattoo looks like and says, it is also a reminder to me of the time and place when I got it. With Maggie, I was so anxious, that I rushed right out and got it, despite the fact that I didn’t have the money. She was our St. Patrick’s Day baby, so I got a shamrock tattooed next to her name. We were in Florida at the time, and I picked a non-descipt tattoo parlor that happened to be open. The tattoo turned out great, and it reminds me of a chaotic time in my and Sarah’s life: new parents, a crazy schedule, reckless spending, and love and allegiance to our new family.

Desmond, much like the tattoo that bears his name, was much more thought out. Maggie’s conception was a surprise — a marvelous surprise — that swept us off our feet into bold new territory full of many challenges where we had to learn (and fail, at times) as we went along. With Desmond, Sarah and I took much greater care to plan for and anticipate everything that would come from having a second baby in the house.

Before Desmond was born, I was a struggling freelance reporter, and we were making ends meet as a family with a little bit of credit card balance and a whole lotta love for each other. When Desmond was born, I assumed greater responsibility for my actions and the impact it would have on the future of my family. I stopped using the credit cards, starting working a lot harder to provide the things my family needed and began casting aside all my wants and desires for the greater good of our family. With Maggie, I was a boy who loved his daughter and wanted to do anything to make her and my wife happy. With Desmond, I became a father who did the things his family needed done in the short and long terms.

Desmond turned me into my Dad, and I can’t imagine a greater compliment.

The shamrock next to Maggie’s name on my tattoo was a no-brainer: her name was picked specifically because she was born on St. Patrick’s Day. Coming up with the symbol next to Desmond’s name was much harder. I finally picked a spade, as an the Ace of Spades from playing cards. His middle name is Harold, after my maternal grandfather, and I choose to honor both my son and my grandparents with the tattoo. My grandparents and I bonded as we played a lot of euchre, so the spade came from those experiences. It was that or a golf club. I believe I made the right choice.

I wanted to get the Desmond tattoo in Boston. No. 1, I felt the city would have the best tattoo artists; and No. 2, it would provide me with that connection to the city. I spent hours looking up tattoo parlor’s on the Internet and eventually picked Stingray in Allston. The place was about as Boston as you could get (even though my tattoo artist, Ray, was from New York), and I felt like a Boston resident getting that tattoo, rather than an outsider who visited the city occasionally.

The best part about it all, the tattoo turned out magnificent. From the second Ray showed me the design he drew up, I was in love with it. The tattoo is amazing, Desmond is perfectly written, the spade is incorporated in a way that fits, the script is close enough to my Maggie tattoo to look similar but different enough to stand out on its own. I couldn’t be more pleased.

As much as I feel like I’m the same person I’ve always been, my family has changed me.

My wife Sarah taught me how to be open, passionate and caring.

My daughter Maggie taught me how small the unimportant things in life really are, especially when compared to the things that really matter.

My son Desmond taught me how to be a man.

So it goes

The expression goes “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” Man, I am slowly realizing that truism.

Back in April, my relationship with the Boston Globe essentially ended, and I took a job as a waiter to make ends meet for a little while. It was only temporary, I thought, until I can get a better paying job or on track as a freelancer. That was eight months ago, and I’m still a waiter.

At the end of June, I started a job as a lowly temp reporter at The Patriot Ledger. It’s only temporary, I thought, until I catch on as a full-time  reporter some place that pays more than $9.30 per hour. That was five months ago, and it appears I am going to fulfill that six-month contract, despite all my initial thoughts to the contrary.

It’s hard, when you want to change your life, realizing that this is your life. It’s taken me this long to accept it, but I’ve now realized this is my life. I work all weekend as a waiter, deflecting questions from customers how a college graduate has ended up serving them bacon and eggs. I work Sunday through Wednesday as a temp reporter for a regional Massachusetts paper, constantly being talked down to. Despite a strong desire to work a professional job with a regular 40-hour work week with vacation days, solid pay and all that, I’m living a life I certainly didn’t plan and very clearly don’t want.

And so goes my life. Finally accepting this fact is extremely comforting to me (and a little depressing). When you’re back is against the wall and you have to struggle hard for every little thing, sometimes surviving is just enough.

To recap the last few months, I’ve gone on five job interviews, got offered and turned down one of those jobs and currently have zero prospects on the horizon, other than I will have to find a full-time gig when my contract with the Ledger ends at the end of December.

Lately, I’ve been thinking that  in 10-15 years I’ll look back and realize I spent the majority of that time looking for something better while not fully enjoying what I had. I know the bulk of the last two years have been that way.

Oh well.

$30,000

One week ago, I was 100 percent sure Sarah, Maggie, Desmond and I were moving to Toledo, Ohio. One week ago, I was imagining that I was working my last days at the Patriot Ledger and at Stephen Anthony’s. One week ago, Sarah and I had practically already moved in our minds, looking up housing and figuring out what our new lives would be like.

We would live within an hour of my parents, who could provide the family support system we’ve been missing in Boston (Sarah and I could finally go out one night without the kids!) We would live within an hour of my brother and his kids, who I hadn’t seen on a consistent basis in 12 years. We would live within an hour of my grandparents, who I miss dearly. Two hours from my friends in Frankenmuth, who I’ve lost touch with in recent years. Two hours from my cousins and their families. Two hours from Columbus. Two hours from Sandusky. Four hours from Chicago.

I was there, man, mentally in every way possible.

Then Monday gave way to Tuesday, and Boston is once again where we call home.

On Sept. 2 and 3, I had an incredible interview with the Toledo Free Press. I use the term interview loosely because I didn’t actually do much talking with anybody there; they instead assigned me two days of work similar to what I would be doing as the small weekly’s managing editor. Either way, though, I was told at the end of my two days that the job was mine, all they had to do was figure out how much salary they could offer me. The offer, I was told, would come either the next day or after the weekend.

That was Sept. 3. When the offer didn’t come the next day; I didn’t think anything of it. When it didn’t come the following Wednesday, Sept. 9, I wrote the editor-in-chief asking what was up. He told me to hang tight, they were going to finalize soon. That following Friday, the 11th, apparently the editor-in-chief and the publisher had an hour-long conversation about me, and they told me the offer was coming the following Monday. But then the offer didn’t come that Monday, or the following Monday either. The whole time, though, the editor-in-chief assured me that the job was mine, and they were trying to finalize an appropriate figure. He did tell me it would be well worth my while.

Sarah, who was anxious to know the direction of our future lives, got antzier with each day; I grew more impatient. Not wanting to have to pay rent for the entire month of October when we were ready to move at the end of September, we gave our landlord 30 days notice on Sept. 11. He started showing the house to potential tenants within three days. Sarah and I were giant balls of stress, checking my e-mail every hour.

Then it came, relief — for a moment — on Tuesday, Sept. 22. The Toledo Free Press was happy to offer me the job of managing editor, becoming their top staff writer, the No. 2 decision-maker in the editorial department.

I was chasing Maggie up the stairs when we got the e-mail offer. Sarah read it to me as I tried to contain my excitement: $30,000 a year with full health benefits for my entire family. The job of managing editor. Decision-making. Copy editing. Prestige. Top writer. Leading contributor. The person who would write the featured article every week.

As Sarah read aloud my new duties and responsibilities, the excitement drained out of me. It drained life out of me. All positive feelings I had toward the Toledo Free Press evaporated.

$30,000 per year, working 50 hours per week.

$30,000.

50 hours.

$30,000.

Doing the math, that works out to $11.50 per hour, or less than the shift manager makes at McDonald’s. To top it off, I had to contribute $160 monthly toward my health insurance premiums, not to mention covering 20 percent of all my health care costs. Sarah would have to work at least 35 hours per week just so our family could break even.

I couldn’t believe it. All that talk from the editor-in-chief how important the position was, and how I was the best interview candidate he’d had. All that talk from the publisher about how his newspaper would really benefit from having a journalist of my calibre. And $30,000 is what they came up with. I didn’t sink in until that moment on the stairs, even though the editor-in-chief told me previously he was struggling to get me $32,000 per year.

Right now, I bust my butt working two jobs nearly 80 hours per week, and it sucks. Waiting tables and being the low man on the totem pole at a mid-sized regional paper south of Boston is not good for my self-esteem. Still, we’re making something like $45,000 a year, so the idea of taking a 30-percent pay cut to move a third of the way across the country (and have my  health insurance costs increase from zero to $550 monthly) was more than disheartening. And this was the only full-time journalism position I’d been offered since March.

After my interview with the Toledo Free Press, I did have some qualms about the paper (mostly about the editor-in-chief) but they were far overshadowed by my zeal for the job, the company’s can-do attitude and the idea of living somewhere near family. If they had offered me $30,000 the day after my interview, I would have accepted without thinking. But that three-week waiting period between the interview and the offer just highlighted all the problems I had with the paper, and it all came crashing down when I heard $30,000 per year.

What irked me the most is that I told them from the beginning I was looking for $35,000-$40,000, and they said it was doable. I even said (and this was my downfall) I was excited about the job and could consider taking less than $35,000 depending on the benefits package, as long as it came with a raise and bonus plan. Still, $30,000 is a long way from $35,000, especially with two kids.

Because it was so low, Sarah thought they were lowballing us, and that I should make a counter-offer. My friend who put me up for the job said the same thing. I consulted my Dad (as I usually do in such matters), and he said $30,000 was way too low to be raising a family in Northwest Ohio. So, I made a counteroffer, saying I was turning the job down at $30,000 but would accept it at $35,000.

Apparently, they weren’t lowballing us. The editor-in-chief wrote me back the next morning, thanking me for taking the time and understanding my need for higher pay; but he didn’t offer anything more. When I wrote back asking why the offer was so low when they said all along that they could meet my needs, he replied saying I was being disrespectful. This guy – who strung me along for more than a month, made me drive out to Toledo on my own dime for the interview, spent the better part of my two-day interview completely ignoring me, and then at the end said he wished he gotten to do more interviewing — was calling me disrespectful. At that point, I wouldn’t have worked with that man for $50,000 a year.

So, we forge onward in Boston.

The next day, Sarah found an affordable three bedroom in Charlestown (the Boston neighborhood where I want to live the most!), and I thought now that the door had closed, the window was opening. Unfortunately, it didn’t pan out, and we’re still in Marlborough. Having been burned twice by out-of-state newspapers, we’re at a loss over what to do. Our landlord has promised to build a fenced-in yard for the dogs and the kids if we sign another year lease, and we’re considering it, not wanting to deal with the hassle of moving. We’re also thinking about moving closer to Boston, hoping our urban dreams are still there to be salvaged.

I also applied to a job opening at The News-Press in Fort Myers (the evil competition to the Naples Daily News when I worked there not long ago). The News-Press seems anxious to interview me, and I’m curious about what they have to say. Sarah — while trying to play it cool — is overwhelmed by the possibility of moving back to the area where she grew up, although she’s cautious, too, because she knows how happy I was to leave Southwest Florida back in 2008.

I have no idea where we are going from here. I have no idea if what we’re currently doing is working out. I’m just waiting right now.

The Plates

After more than a year living in Massachusetts, I feel no more than a Bostonian than I did before we moved here.  This is expected, though, as I never felt like a resident of Sandusky until after I moved away, and didn’t feel like part of Bonita Springs until I was there more than a year. Still, these feelings of being an outsider are more fevered in Boston, which has an incredible culture and population I want to be a part of, yet I can’t quite seem to break into the scene in a meaningful way.

Don’t get me wrong, I love living near the city. It’s great to be able to visit every once in awhile, but I still feel more like a tourist and less like a resident every time we go into Boston. Even though I now work in Quincy — a city five miles away from Boston Proper — my job at the Patriot Ledger only fuels my feelings of being an outsider, since I’m basically the runt of the newsroom who garners little respect despite any skills I may show.

Today, though, those feelings dwindled.

Today, I put Massachusetts license plates on our van.

It may sound silly, but nothing labels you as an outsider more than driving around a state in a car with plates from another state. This is insanely true in Massachusetts where some police departments have task forces to hunt down in-state residents who drive cars with out-of-state plates (they want your taxes and fees!). In many ways, we were shunning Boston the same way I felt it was shunning us. We didn’t want to accept the rules and costs associated with living here, so we defiantly drove around with outsider plates. By finally submitting today, I felt more like a Massachusetts resident than I had in the entire year previous.

Then, later today, a small token pushed me a little closer to feeling less like an outsider. Maggie’s favorite Australian band, The Wiggles, is playing a concert in Worcester, about 20 minutes from our house. Sarah and I agreed we had to get her tickets, to see her beloved Murray, Jeff, Anthony and Sam. Up until this point, Sarah and I have avoided taking part in any scheduled events in Massachusetts: no concerts, no government gatherings, no trick-or-treating, no sports game, nothing a Massachusetts native would typically do with some money and free time. Whenever we went outside our home, it was always to parks and restaurants and museums, but nothing too far from the tourist trade. (The exception, of course, is the one Red Sox game, but I don’t count that since we only got tickets through Sarah’s mom, and going to a Sox game is something tourists typically do). The reason for this shunning of scheduled events was a lack of money; lack of time; or lack of somebody to watch the kids, although we really could have made it happen if we wanted to. With today’s realization of The Wiggles, I feel a lot less like we are just renting some space in Massachusetts.

While today made me feel more like a Massachusetts resident than any day before it, I’m certainly not any closer to feeling like a Bostonian. I still live in freaking-far Marlborough, and the moves today also made me feel more tied to distant suburbia than a city resident. Sarah and I could change this situation if we really wanted by moving much closer to the city and engaging more in its urban landscape; but we still fail to shift out of neutral on that one, even though our one-year lease expired at the end of August.

So, as we sit here becoming more like Massachusetts residents every day and on the verge of engaging the city of Boston we so love, we also are on the verge of giving it all up. I interviewed for a managing editor job in Toledo last week and was offered the job flat out. The only thing that has kept me from celebrating and immediately planning a move was I haven’t received the formal offer with salary and benefits just yet, even though I expect to receive it by the end of this week.

I guess it’s just funny. I’m sure we could tough it out for awhile in Boston and eventually find a situation that is satisfactory to everybody, and we could start down that path if we so choose. But the idea living in Toledo near family; in a good-sized, reasonably priced house with room for the kids and the dogs; spending 2-3 whole days at home with my kids; and working at a job that offers me a great deal of respect is all just so tempting. As long as the salary and benefits package offers my family a comfortable life in Northwest Ohio (haven’t lived there in 15 years), I’m going to take it.

Thus ending The Great Boston Experiment.

Up and down and still in Boston

Honest to God, when we moved here about a year ago, I thought Sarah and I and the kids would be in New England for the greater remainder of our lives. When we visited here in May 2007 and decided this was the place we wanted to live, I didn’t care what it would take to live and work in Boston — even if it meant leaving journalism and working in some other profession — I was determined to make it work in Massachusetts.

Throughout a year of huge snowstorms, high rent, lost career opportunities and general feelings of isolation and despair, I haven’t wavered too much from that stance. Sure, Sarah and I have had long discussions about moving somewhere closer to family where we would have a better support system in place (and a lower rent as a bonus) but none of that ever advanced beyond the talking stage. I generally thought that when our lease was up at the end of August, that we would move someplace closer to the city of Boston, making our urban dreams seem less suburban. I half-heartedly applied for a few job openings outside New England but was never excited about the prospect of moving anywhere.

That was until about a month ago, where for the first time, I really saw myself living outside of Greater Boston.

An old friend from my first professional newspaper job, Beth Werling, told my wife that the Sandusky Register was looking for a new sports editor. Beth and her husband Jason thought it was a good idea that I applied for the position. The managing editor had interviewed a lot of people and hadn’t found anybody quite right for the job. Beth and Jason (and Sarah) thought that my many connections at the Register and my knowledge of the Sandusky area would make me a great candidate, even though I hadn’t done sports full-time since college.

It took me a day or two to get behind the idea (a good-sized part of me still loves the idea of staying in Boston) but after picturing Sarah, Maggie, Desmond and I living and working in Sandusky, I started to love the idea. That passion was fueled by my current professional situation, where I worked 25-30 hours a week as a waiter and another 50 hours in the Patrior-Ledger newsroom in a position where I’m routinely referred to as “intern” and “co-op” (and am assigned stories equal to the importance of somebody labled “intern” and “co-op”) and I don’t really have any prospects in New England to move out of this current predicament, either inside or outside the journalism profession. The idea of actually seeing my babies for more than 1 hour a day was very enticing, not to mention being able to run my own newspaper section.

So I applied to the sports editor job in Sandusky, writing a knock out cover letter and getting endorsements from Jason, Beth and a few others. After talking with the managing editor on the phone, I was excited that we saw eye-to-eye on many things, especially on the direction of a sports section that was still getting used to the 24/7 cycle of Web newspaper journalism. The managing editor, Matt Westerhold, decided to fly me out to Sandusky for an interview. Sarah thought it was in the bag, and my mom was giddy that she would be less an hour from her grandchildren.

Here’s how the interview went:

With MAYBE the exception of my Bonita Daily News interview, this was the best interview of my life. I talked up my strengths, laid out an innovative direction for the Register sports Web site, addressed and satiated any concerns about my weaknesses, met with all the key people and ending up getting endorsements from everyone surrounding Westerhold. I knocked it out of the park. At one point, Westerhold said, “I’m going to offer you the job,” and we even talked specifics on salary, timing of my start date and long-range contracts. In my non-interview time, I looked at housing, visited parks and saw what had changed since I left the Ohio city back in 2005.

Then, Westerhold didn’t call me.

I finished my interview on Tuesday. I flew back to Boston on Wednesday. By noon Thursday, he still hadn’t rung. When I finally called him later that day, he began the conversation with “Unfortunately….” Apparently, the interim sports editor – who had been begging off the promotion for three months, saying he didn’t want to be the permanent sports editor — had changed his mind. I had known this going in, with Westerhold saying the interim was a candidate for the permanent position, and at several points Westerhold said he was going back and forth between this person and me. However, this was also the interim sports editor, that, during my interview in Sandusky, had been called lazy; uncreative; not forward-thinking; not a well-rounded journalist; and the old way of doing things (I was called the new way) and Westerhold wanted to get away from the old way of doing things. Westerhold even told me I would make a better sports editor. I was more than a little shocked when I found out I didn’t get the job. Apparently, the interim sports editor had written to Westerhold “29 reasons why I should get the job on my 29th birthday” and Westerhold, being a bit of a sappy fool, had gone for it.

Least to say, the ensuing week was very dark for me, with Sarah, unfortunately, taking the brunt of it. To make matters worse, before Westerhold invited me to Sandusky, he offered me $200 as pay for the intense amount of time I would be spending at the newspaper. Of course, after the interview and in same conversation that started “Unfortunately….” Westerhold informed me that I wasn’t going to get the $200; apparently the paper won’t pay for somebody who comes for an interview. Nevermind the $600 I was down between traveling expenses, missing work for four days and turning down three freelancing assignments. I even called Westerhold a few days later, asking why he brought me out there for the intervie to ultimately just waste my time and money (I even asked him to reconsider his decision, as I was in such a state of shock over not being picked for the job). The conversation ultimately made me feel better, even if I’m still at a loss over what exactly happened.

Now, after our first legitimate attempt at abandoning the Great Boston Experiment, we’re still here. We’re still living in Marlborough (decided to go month-to-month with the landlord until Sarah and I figure things out) and I’m still working 75 hours a week at two less-than-satisfying jobs.

I don’t know how I feel about this. When we started this grand experiment, it was basically for two reasons. 1. I wanted to see if I could make it as a freelance journalist — live The Dream – being able to live and work from home while running outside the traditional corporate, career tract system. Even though I still write freelance, when the Boston Globe stopped needing me to write articles, I gave up on The Dream of writing freelance exclusively. But the idea of moving to Boston really began with the second reason. 2. We wanted to live in Boston.

Sure, we live in Marlborough and only make it inside the city limits 2-3 times a month now, but we are still making it work. If Sarah and I really wanted to, we could move a lot closer to the city. Sometimes it feels, though, that Boston isn’t the right fit for us right now. The rent is enormous, we have two small babies and three dogs, which don’t lend themselves to small home, urbanized lifestyles, so maybe change is right for us. Then again, we won’t truly appreciate what we’ve got until it’s gone. I certainly didn’t appreciate the joy and total freedom of living the freelance lifestyle for eight months. Sarah and I love the city; each time we drive in and have a fantastic time, we both abhor the idea of giving up such a grand thing. We’re in Marlborough, but we are ultimately 45 minutes away from everything Boston has to offer. If we still lived in Florida (or moved someplace else) we’d maybe get to see Boston once every two years, and that would be using up valuable vacation time that we would like to spend going to places like Disney World, Ireland, Hawaii and the like. Now, the city is right there, whenever we can make the time (and the money).

Is Boston worth 75 hours a week of demeaning jobs and never getting to see my family? No. Absolutely not. But, 10 years from now, is 75 hours a week of demeaning jobs and never getting to see my family a small price to pay for living in a great city that we love in a fulfilling  job? Yes. Absolutely.

The only problem is, I don’t see how I get there. Yes, I am more than willing to slave away now for a chance at something far better in a few years, but I have a very hard time seeing that something better. I honestly every day live in fear of spending the next 30 years of my life waiting on tables and hoping for 20 percent in tip. Maybe a great opportunity in another city is the way to go. Maybe it isn’t.

I have such a hard time finding the right answer because I know there is no right answer.

Yet, Sarah and I still will have to make a decision, sooner rather than later.

An old colleague of mine from the Sandusky Register gave me quite the recommendation to Westerhold, and she, too, was shocked when he didn’t hire me as sports editor. However, she also freelances for the Toledo Free Press, and knows that weekly paper is in need of a managing editor, which at an upstart weekly means I’d be doing a combination of writing articles and overseeing reporters and their content. She apparently gave me a strong recommendation to the editor-in-chief there, too, because after a 25-minute conversation where I said hardly anything, he wants me to fly to Toledo (it’s in Ohio, people) and see if I’d fit in with the staff there. We even talked money, briefly.

After what happened with Sandusky, I’m proceeding with caution here. I’m excited about the prospects but am much more thoughtful over what I’d be giving up. Yes, Toledo is a fine city, but Boston is Boston. What you find here, you can’t find anywhere.

Will this be the end to The Great Boston Experiment? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, if I keep trying at jobs outside the area, this year-long experiment will eventually come to a close.

My Second Day

Today was much better.

If there’s one positive trait I lack, it’s certainly patience. I may have a lot of character flaws, but my biggest one has always been a lack of patience, my inability to realize that long-term goals take more than effort and desire. They take time and patience.

At the Patriot-Ledger today, I felt much less like the new kid on the block and more like I was in my element. Sure, I was still the secretary answering phones and clearing out e-mails, but I also wrote a story, got two more assignments and hit the street to interview some people for a few tidbits. For most of the day today, I felt more like a reporter than I have in any day since I started working as a waiter.

I still feel as if my talents and experience are being wasted in this low-paying position, but something is better than nothing. More importantly, I realize if I stick with it, good things will happen. Sure, this isn’t an ideal situation, but what is right now? With a little patience, maybe that ideal situation will come along.

My first day

It’s been nearly four years since I started a new job at a newspaper company, but today I had my first day at the Patriot-Ledger in Quincy. I wouldn’t say my beginnings at the Sandusky Register or the Naples Daily News were necessarily reflective of my entire time there, but today did not go well.

First, after driving all the way to Quincy, I realized I’ll have to fill up the new van at least twice each week just to make the commute. That’s a solid $90 expenditure when I’ll only make about $300 in a given week. Upon arrival, I was introduced around the newsroom as the new “intern” and immediately asked which college I was still attending. I had naturally assumed this already about the job, but it was nice to finally confirm I was performing a job typically reserved for those fresh out of high school.

After sitting awhile by my desk — trying not to fall asleep — I soon discovered some of my important duties. 1. I must be the secretary of the newsroom and answer the phone whenever it rings. 2. I must clear all the junk e-mail out of the newsroom e-mail inbox. I wasn’t given a coverage area, a breakdown of the newspaper’s editorial policies or really anything remotely to do with journalism (except for one assignment, which I’ll touch on in a minute). It’s safe to say that about 90 percent of this first day at the Patriot-Ledger had nothing to do with journalism. Of course, they could have been just easing me in; my new boss seems to have a solid head on his shoulders, so maybe today was just the orientation process.

Still, today, for the first time since moving to Massachusetts, I wished I was back working at the Naples Daily News. When I left there nearly a year ago, I was so glad to be gone from that downtrodden atmosphere that I couldn’t have imagined anything worse. Even after everything that’s happened since I left — the financial insecurity of the freelance lifestyle; the cold, long winter; losing my relationship with the Boston Globe; having to work as a waiter — I never once thought for a second that I’d be better off back in Florida. Now, I’m not saying that my experience at the Ledger will be worse than NDN (today was only one day after all), but for a long time today I was missing my old job in Bonita and all the perks that came with it.

But,  you know what? I still think I made the right decision. If nothing else, I had eight months were I got to work from home, see my little girl grow and help my wife with our pregnancy. Despite everything that’s happened since the end of March, it was all worth it just for those eight months. I wouldn’t give them back for anything. When I left NDN, I knew I might have to get a non-journalism job, or even start back from the beginning with another newspaper. What I’m doing now is exactly what I reasoned with myself that I would do if circumstances made it that way.

Despite all the gloominess from today, there was a little sunshine on an otherwise long eight hours. I was given a story assignment. Sure, it was a weather story, which I typically loathe, but it was nice to get back in the swing of things at a newspaper, interviewing people and talking about things I knew would matter to people in the paper. It may have been 30 minutes of joy surrounded by 7.5 hours of demoralizing boredom, but at least it was something.

Back in the fray

To be honest with you, the interview at Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly did not go well (see my Glimmer of Hope posting). I was late; couldn’t find a place to park; and off my game the entire interview. I’d be beyond shocked if I got hired there. I’ve never done very well on the interviews that last only 45-60 minutes (as opposed to the one- or two-day interview), but this was just bad.

But, by the grace of God and my own indecisive mind, I’m getting back into journalism full-time. This Monday I will start a six-month temp position with the Patriot-Ledger out of Quincy, which is just south of Boston. Now, I’m eternally grateful to the good folks at the Ledger for offering what feels like one of only a half dozen open journalism jobs in all of Massachusetts, but this is not my ideal return to journalism. It’s the 12-8 Sunday thru Thrusday shift (read: lackey), which means I’m starting below what I was doing when I first got out of college for the Sandusky Register. Also, the pay is terrible; as in so terrible I can make more money working at McDonalds; not as a McDonalds manager, but as the regular dude who cooks fries and slathers special sauce on Big Macs. This means, that I still have to keep one of my waitering jobs just to make ends meet for my young family (yea! working six and a half days per week!) It also means I’ll have to do the type of stories I couldn’t stand when I was with Sandusky Register and Naples Daily News, like doing a write up on the best fishing spot in Southern Massachusetts. My wife and I moved our family to Massachusetts so I could spend more time at home and write the stories I was passionate about; instead I’ll be gone all the time (it’s a one hour commute each way) and write what I’m told to write.

But, you know what? I’m glad to be taking this job. Sure, the hours are terrible and the money is worse, but when I’m back in the groove of doing journalism and writing full-time, I won’t worry about any of that. I want to freelance from home and I want to be my own boss, but that just not possible right now. Instead, I’ll take what I can get, and this is what I can get right now.

On this blog, I haven’t done a very good job of chronicling our life since I switched from freelancing full-time to working as a waiter. Now, I’m grateful to the folks at Picadilly Pub for helping me out of a tight financial situation when I needed it, but I couldn’t stand that place. The worst part every day for me was the shift board. In the kitchen (by the dishwasher and the ice machine), there’s a bulletin board where servers list all the shifts they need picked up for vacations, birthdays, weekend trips, whatever. When I first started in April, I hesitated to pick up anyone’s shifts because I always reasoned with myself that there was no way I’d still be working at Picadilly Pub in late May or June or July. Yet, the weeks would keep rolling by, and I’d grow more and more discontent that I was at that job longer than I thought I should have been.

The day of Enlightenment for me came about two weeks ago when I was still mulling over taking the job at the Patriot-Ledger because the pay and the hours were so bad. It was a Tuesday, and it was slow (as it always is at the Picadilly Pub) and I was roaming between groups of servers who were chewing the fat to take up the time. All the conversations were just so whiny and awful and unbearable that I had to go sit by myself in a corner. I ended up in front of the shift board, saw all those dates that I never signed up for two months ago, saw all those dates that were coming up two months in the future, and decided I needed to do something different. Then and there, I decided to take the job at the Ledger. If I stick with journalism, chances are something with come of it; if I stick with waitering, in 10 years I’ll still be making the same rate, hoping for 20 percent tip and having whiny, awful, unbearable conversations with other waiters. The choice was clear. The best few seconds I’ve ever had at the Picadilly Pub where when I gave my notice to my boss, we exchanged mutual appreciation for each other, he wished me luck in my new position, and I walked away. It felt great.

Patience is a virtue; and it is a virtue that is very important in life. It’s also a virtue that I’ve never had. I was ready to leave the Sandusky Register after six months and reached my breaking point after two years.  With the Naples Daily News, I was ready to out and out quit journalism just to get away from the place after three years. Yet, with a little patience, things might have turned out differently. My boss at the Sandusky Register was ready to promote me to city editor after just two years at the paper, a position which was one small step from leading the entire newsroom, and still I left. At the Naples Daily News, my boss — the enigmatic Tom Hanson — wrote in my last evaluation that I could be a great newsman if I just had the patience to wait out a promotion. I was close to being a section editor after less than three years at that job and would have been promoted soon enough had a waited around. Hell, I might have had a chance at being managing editor within 10-15 years, which would have been significant considering I would have been less than 40 years old when I got the job. Unfortunately, my complete lack of patience took me away from all of that.

I still consider my moves away from Sandusky and Naples to be good things. Regardless of what I should have learned, I still believe I made the right decision at the time. Moving forward, though, I wonder if I shouldn’t take a different approach to this Patriot-Ledger job. Maybe starting at the bottom, again, and proving myself over a longer period of time will reap greater rewards. Maybe I can lead the charge that will make journalism a great profession once again. Maybe it will crash and burn just.

Either way, I’m glad to be back in the fray.

A Glimmer of Hope

It’s been a rough week in the waitering biz. Financially, it has probably been the best Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday since I started as a waiter, but I reached my breaking point mentally at both my serving jobs on Tuesday and Wednesday.

First, at Stephen Anthony’s, the owner repeatedly dogged me about wasting food at the restaurant. As a small, specialty restaurant, the place only has a limited amount of food, and the owner is understandably concerned about making sure everything that is prepared goes to a customer and is paid for. However, in verbally attacking me for wasting food on Tuesday, the owner wasn’t actually talking about food that had been prepared because of me, he was talking about food that was “almost” wasted because of me. This “almost” apparently happens whenever the cooks have a question about one of my orders. In the case on Tuesday, it was whether a piece of salmon should be made well done or blackened, and the matter was settled before any food was wasted. In the five weeks since I was hired, the amount of food that was actually wasted because of me (prepared food that was sent back because it was wrong) totals about $11, which is for a side of breakfast ham, a Western omlette and a sandwich. If you add the one beer and two glasses of wine from my first two days of training, I figure I’ve wasted about $30 total in menu value, which is not a small amount but not above average compared to other servers over the course of five weeks. Now, I genuinely feel bad about all the mistakes I’ve made and wouldn’t mind if the owner spoke to me in a professional fashion about needing to shore up my work. Instead, though, he scolds me using the same manner and tone of voice I use when I yell at the dogs for peeing on the carpet. He also uses the terms “all the time” and “on every shift” when he talks about me wasting food, even though he only happened on three separate shifts out of the 25 or so I’ve worked. And Tuesday was just the culmination of everything, in general, he uses the same demeanor (see, again, like yelling at dogs peeing on the carpet) whenever he is addressing the wait staff.

If Tuesday at Stephen Anthony’s drained me mentally, then Wednesday was a marathon taking me to the breaking point. First, both my waitering jobs had been pressing me to take an Alcohol Awareness class so I know how to spot a fake ID and when to cut someone off from the drink. On Wednesday I finally went to a class that was 25 minutes away. The class, of course, started an hour late (making me an hour late for my night shift at the Picadilly Pub; good-bye tips), and the entire session consisted of an old lady talking to herself for three hours in several different character voices, often pretending she was drunk. She did, of course, take the time to repeatedly insult the three Japanese waitresses who didn’t speak English very well, and verbally assault another waitress who had to leave early because of the late start. Then, at Piccadilly Pub, I had to stay late because one of the older waitresses refused to do any of her side work and had the manager force me to do it for her. The older waitress then used her free time to hang by the host stand, steal customers from the rest of us; and then, at the end of the night, sit on her fat butt and eat popcorn that is meant for customers. To top off my day, the manager also made me wait an extra 30 minutes to leave because she couldn’t figure out that the $10 gift card she rang up for one of my guests was the same $10 gift card charge that was on my report at the end of the night. What made this whole situation worse was that Sarah, Maggie and Desmond were waiting out in the parking lot for 15 minutes because they had to come pick me up. Of course, it was after Maggie’s bed time, so when we got home, she spent an hour crying in her room before she finally fell back asleep.

I tell you now, if I wasn’t so in desperate need of money at this point, I couldn’t stand waitering much longer. It is getting harder and harder not to bring this all home with me every day, disrupting what are some of the best moments of my private life.

Monday, though, brings a glimmer of hope.

I have a job interview with a legal magazine in Boston, looking for me to become their next courts reporter. I would be working right in the downtown financial district, and if everything goes well, Sarah and I can move our family a lot closer to the city. We would be living and working in Boston, not in freaking far Marlborough, which is an hour away. It’s not quite The Dream of combining my private and professional life to the benefit of both, but it is the dream we envisioned when we first said one year ago we wanted to live in Boston. This is a job I could keep and stay in and excel at. Yes, the money would be important, but I would also be furthering my career and doing something that suits me far better than bringing people plates of food. When I was having a rough time Tuesday and Wednesday, I just kept repeating to myself that it could all be over soon; that I wouldn’t be a waiter for life; that I wouldn’t have to abandon the dreams of a Boston life.  This could really be something.

Of course, I may be putting too much on this one job interview; that if I don’t get a job, that it will be even harder to pick myself up off the mat once again and keep going to Stephen Anthony’s and Piccadilly Pub. Or, even worse, it will turn out like the Patriot Ledger, where I have a job offer, but the position is very unstable and the pay is so low that I couldn’t possibly support myself, much less a family.

Still, I’m talking this job interview for what it is today: a glimmer of hope guiding me through a difficult time in a my professional life.