jianantonic | (no subject)

I promised a more thorough update on the Aol stuff. So. Ever since the HuffPo merger a few months back, shit's been bad for freelancers. Early announcements made it clear that we would not have our jobs much longer. One by one, I watched friends get laid off, but hung onto my own job. I thought there was a slim chance that the Travel staff would be an exception to the freelancer embargo, since you can't really be a good travel writer if you're stuck at a desk all the time. But it was clear that the guy who took over my department was not my ally. He never made any effort to work with me on anything, or to hide the fact that he was a complete and total tool. So I knew that even if I somehow escaped the freelancer massacre, I didn't really want to work for this guy much longer.

But it was difficult to muster the energy to look for alternatives. Knowing I was a lame duck was very difficult. I didn't feel like writing for Aol because I knew they no longer valued my work. But it also kind of killed my motivation for writing at all. You may have noticed that even my lj posts have been less frequent. I just haven't felt like writing.

Yesterday, I got an email thanking me for my contributions over the years, but cutting me loose effective immediately. And yeah, it's a bummer. I would've liked to have left on my own terms, obviously. But it's not devastating. I have marketable skills and I know I'll get another writing job soon. Until then, I'll get back to my own website and keep doing what I do. It's not like losing this job will cost me much money -- I hardly made anything at it. The biggest setback will be that I no longer have an outlet where I can promise publicists millions of readers when I write a story about their clients. But I hope that will change. I have offers to contribute at other popular sites, so I can do that here and there to hopefully satisfy some of the folks who have sponsored me on trips and such. This may mean I have to cancel my upcoming MT/WY trip. We'll see, though. I'll be back on my feet soon. Getting laid off has ignited the motivation I had such trouble finding over the past several weeks, so it could very well be a total blessing.

Here's my to-do list for today:

Write a resume (it's been four years since I updated it, so I think I'll just start from scratch)

Contact MT/WY tourism offices and let them know I can't place stories on Aol Travel anymore

Send out some feelers/brainstorm new job stuff

Laundry/general tidying

Write something new for Jianantonic.com. (And pimp the shit out of it.)

Here goes.