Career Corner - Copy Editor

(Edited for spelling at 10:17am - duh - good thing I'm not a copy editor.)

My niece K told me the other day that she really enjoys reading The Dawn Patrol [K has good taste, just like her Aunt J ;-)]. Dawn refers quite often to her job. From her posts I had learned that she works at a big newspaper, writes headlines and has a workday shift nowhere near my 8-5. But I didn't know exactly what her job was, and asked her to write about it when she had the time.

Less than 24 hours later, Dawn has written an essay about her job that is so thorough I feel like I have just watched a movie.

Thus we have the first entry in what will be a semi-regular feature on this blog - the Career Corner. My objective is to give you a real-world look at various careers in the hope you find it useful as you consider what you may want to do for a living.

Dawn makes an excellent point when she says...

...if I could go back and talk to my younger self, I would have told myself to choose a career doing what I did best—and pursue my passions in my off-time. That's not the same thing as choosing a boring career. What one does best is rarely boring.

That reminded me of a man I knew when I worked at a trade association in the 1980s. We sponsored a big trade show once a year, and D worked for the company that created all the magic - turning a cavernous empty hall into a glittering showplace and back into a cavernous empty hall until the next show came to town. I asked D once about his job and how he liked it, and in the course of the conversation he told me his "real" dream was to be a forest ranger. But being a forest ranger did not pay enough to allow him to pursue other dreams, most especially being a husband and father. He enjoyed his "real" job, and spent as much time as he could - along with his family - in nature.

Last time I inquired, D was still at the company that does the trade show magic. Perhaps you will hear from him in a future Career Corner post.