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Apr 2 2019
New Challenges: Facing a Job Loss with 3 Rules to Live By

Since my last post, we’ve experienced some upheaval. My job for the last 3 years was eliminated (new director + new board = new priorities + restructuring).

While I am looking for a new job, I have been very busy. I am doing more volunteer work—including writing and editing materials for a state non-profit, recording radio ads for the same organization, and serving on the board of a national non-profit organization.

My husband and I have also become heavily involved in local community theater and we have performances this coming weekend. (Insert a nail-biting emoji here!)

Regarding the job loss: It is disappointing to serve an organization only to find that your work will be farmed out to a marketing firm but it’s the way things are in this day and age. Excellent writers, editors, and communications professionals are finding their skills in greater demand but for smaller companies and non-profits, it’s sometimes easier to hire a firm for specific projects. This is what happened to me.

When dealing with job loss, I think there are 3 important things to do and remember:

  1. Realize that sometimes there are things you could have done differently but that your job loss may not be about you. The issues may have been all on your employer’s side and there is nothing you could have done differently. Be kind afterward. Do NOT burn bridges– no matter how frustrated or angry you may be. Letting your anger/frustration show is ineffective, a waste of time, and can only hurt your and your former employer/fellow employees. Remember, you worked to help make them what they are and put them where they are. Don’t tear it down when you leave.
  2. Stick to a schedule afterward, get up at your normal time, and use the day to send out your résumé. Don’t be afraid to apply for jobs that are “below” your abilities. Prioritize looking for jobs that you would enjoy and that you can commit to doing.
  3. Move forward by utilizing your abilities in other areas such as volunteer work. I love volunteering for organizations that align with my beliefs. I spend my free time working on things that I enjoy doing and that are related to my talents. Volunteering does two things for me. First, it prevents me from doing “nothing” while waiting on the phone to ring after applying for jobs and, second, volunteering let’s me use my abilities and keep them sharp. I also have my own projects, such as my blog, that require me to understand WordPress, HTML code, and social media applications.

I hope this helps you if you are also facing job loss. It’s disheartening but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world.

Laura Echevarria 0 Comments
Jan 22 2019
Media Madness

Having served as the media director for a national citizen’s lobby group several years ago, I know that the media can have their own agenda. I experienced it first hand.

Years ago, after I did a live interview on a major national network, the producer used the footage to put together a package on the same topic to air later that night. The edited version was cut to make it sound like I said something I really didn’t. While the edits were consistent with our organization’s overall purpose, strategically it was not something we were saying at the time. I was really angry with the producer and left her a message to that effect.

When I spoke with the producer the next day, she admitted that she cut the interview deliberately to create a brand-new-with-a-different-meaning quote for me because, as she put it, it was something that she “thought” I would say. It was the first time I had had that happen to me and when I spoke with another spokesperson–who had years more experience– he just laughed and said that it had happened to him several times and it was just the way reporters and producers could be. The edited quote, while not ideal, wasn’t the end of the world. His advice: never trust them.

But I was angry. A journalist is supposed to report the news without bias and they’re not supposed to go “quote shopping”– i.e., trying to set up an interview to get a quote that fits a preconceived narrative. They’re not supposed to cut interview footage to reflect what they think a spokesperson should say.

And, before you say it, I know they’re human–they make mistakes just like everyone else– but a single producer doesn’t produce a news package in a vacuum. She has supervising producers and executive producers who are supposed to act as stop-gaps to prevent such things from happening.

So, yeah, I was angry.

But I was a trained spokesperson. I knew what to expect and how to react and how to respond, yet I was still upset by how I was treated. I was still shocked by how easily it was–and is–in this day and age to have the words I said edited so that they sounded like a completely different quote.

And the worst part is that those particular edits were a sham–a set up–designed to give “legs” to a story, make the news cycle, and put a particular network at the front. All in the name of ratings–which leads to advertisers and more money for the network.

Newspapers around since the 1800s have had to compete against 24-hour news cycles since the 1990s and, today, they have to compete against the Twitterverse with posts from Joey875555 or Sebastian254486 (I’m making these up so don’t look for them on Twitter). And often the things posted on Twitter can become viral in moments.

Pictures can be cropped and airbrushed, video footage edited, and yet, everyone still believes that what they see is the truth.

And they take sides. Often viciously–because the basest, most feral parts of mankind feel freed in the anonymity of the internet.

A lie can lede and a retraction doesn’t have the same power as the original story.

There is a saying–modified from something Jonathan Swift once wrote–that says, “A lie can travel around the world before the truth has a chance to put on its pants.”

Sadly, a few centuries later, it’s still true.

Laura Echevarria 0 Comments
Dec 3 2018
The End of an Era

The first president I voted for after turning 18 was President George H.W. Bush.

Away from home and at college in Tennessee, I transferred my residency to the Volunteer state just so I could vote like a “real” voter. None of that absentee ballot stuff for me, no sir, I was going to stand in line– even in the rain (which was highly likely in the Tennessee Valley)– show my voter ID, cast my ballot and be counted.

I wanted my first voting experience to be for President Reagan, whom I adored. He was the first president I was truly aware of but, alas, I was too young each time he ran.

But President George Herbert Walker Bush? President Reagan’s Vice President? I was in.

We often don’t remember the also-rans but I remember Michael Dukakis–largely because my debate partner used to say that he didn’t want to vote for someone whose last name sounded like something you stepped in. Other than the two major nominees, I don’t remember many details about the presidential race but I do remember that I felt I voted for the man I thought would do the job the best, who largely believed in the same things I did.

President Bush was a gracious man who, despite his wealth and his education, had a servant’s heart. So many tributes have poured in, stories of how he took time with a child or was especially kind to others in a way that made it clear that that was who he was. His kindness wasn’t for show.

It has already been said but it is the end of an era. May President Bush enjoy his rest, reunited with his beloved Barbara and their daughter, Robin.

Laura Echevarria 0 Comments