How To Lose A Job in Publishing (And Learn to Love the Business More Than Ever)

In Which the Heroine (and Some of Her Pet Foibles) are Introduced

One year ago this month, I began my first fulltime job in publishing. I had graduated from college a week before and was the only person I knew with a salaried job in the field of her choice waiting for her. (If you detect a touch of smug, you’re onto something).

One reason I was so proud was that there’d been no “networking” involved in getting this particular job; just sending more than 75 resumes and cover letters, starting that March. I had followed one piece of advice, though, from my internship supervisor the summer before (also advised by Krista Rainer Carnes in, “Finding Your Path“): don’t limit yourself to the department you “just know” you want to be in (I think by “department” we all know I mean “editorial.”) This is an excellent piece of advice (I’m still sharing it with others), but this story is a bit more complicated than gloating about hireability.

I’d “branched out” and gotten a Production Assistant job at a small scholarly publisher of social science. To my not-so-inner intellectual snob, everything on paper looked perfect…but you may have observed that things’ appearance on paper is rarely mentioned when things actually ARE perfect.

The Plot (and Smog over NYC) Thickens

Imperfect thing #1 (aka “Them): Publisher-That-Must-Not-Be-Named had never had a production-cum-editorial assistant before, not in their 17 years of business. To a certain extent, they were ready to figure things out as we went along, but not along with me. A major complaint was that I asked “too many questions.” Sometimes, I even asked about the same thing TWICE (the nerve).

Imperfect thing #2 (aka “Me”): I am a lousy production assistant–innately. I’m a disciplined person and therefore able to rally obsession with non-verbal detail when need-be, but this is not my native custom. The problem is that effort simply isn’t enough when you’re at work for your tenth hour, poring over blues, trying to convince yourself you care. This is where instinct or years of training kick in. I didn’t know this until just such a moment, when I realized: I could not guarantee I hadn’t misplaced a running head.

The summer and my anxiety grew. My confusion revolved around the theoretical knowledge that I had the job of my dreams…right? And my enthusiasm for working on books about corporate anthropology and midwifery in South America truly was enormous. But what was this constant terror about? And frequent shame? How do these fit into the professional experience? I wondered.

The Moment of Crisis

Well, September came, along with the announcement that my summer trial was over and I shouldn’t come back the next day. A summer was long enough for my employer to see that my “shortcomings” were “too grievous for me to ever overcome” (and I quote).

Cue desolation, despair, distress, and many other D-words. My job was the only place I knew I belonged and had meaning in the enormity of New York City. I just knew I’d been proven unfit for the only career I wanted–possibly for any career. Even if not, who would ever hire me when they heard about my “grievous shortcomings”? I thought I knew the answer to that question, but I decided to ask first. Just to be safe.

So it was that I began networking in earnest only after I lost my first job. This time I wasn’t looking for a job (I figured I was unhireable). This time I only wanted to ask people with experience: “What is WRONG with me?” I wrote everyone I knew who might know someone in publishing—absolutely no shame was exercised in the making of this part of the story. Before I had a job, networking felt uncomfortable because I didn’t know what I needed to know, or how other peoples’ knowledge could fit into my experience. But this time, when a kind publicist from Hachette (wife of one of my college advisor’s fantasy football buddies—you never know where you’ll find ‘em) met me for coffee and told me to go ahead applying in publishing, it was after I’d asked detailed questions from the perspective of someone who’s served some time inside already.

I wrote to Matthew, my college internship supervisor, the Publisher at The Experiment, and a man with an enormous gift for mentorship. I asked if we could talk about what went wrong, and to see if he had input as someone for whom I’d both interned and worked. I just wanted to talk and, on the spot, he offered me a part time job at The Experiment until I could find fulltime work.

The Moral of the Story…

Those 4 months I spent at The Experiment were of so much more value than merely a mechanism for keeping me fed and clothed. They were a show of trust in me when I had not an ounce in myself. They were a chance to be back in a publishing environment where I’d felt valuable before. But it was also a safe germinating spot that helped me get over the Breakup with Job #1 by letting me work at low stakes in all different departments, but in important-enough jobs that I began to notice manuscripts don’t automatically combust at my touch.

I learned how to augment and improve my strengths and weaknesses better in those months than I believe I could have in as many months of “professional development” workshops. I learned where my strengths weaken and how to cut off my common garden-variety mistakes before they cause trouble. Learning to see my strengths  also gave me the confidence and wisdom to know where to I can push beyond the basics and anticipate positive results. Learning to trust your gut is very important—but only after your gut has acquired a few key concepts and a keen sense of observation.

The Denouement

One afternoon, I got a call for a last-minute interview. During the interview, as I did in all my “Second Wave” interviews, I asked multiple questions about intraoffice communication. In addition, something made me feel safe enough to disclose just how horrid my last job had been—and why.The interviewers wanted to know not only about my passions within the field of publishing, but about my history and family as well. I also said that any job I accepted in future would be on the stipulation that I be allowed to ask as many questions as I needed.

Their call the next day to offer me a job was, I think, the moment when I best employed all I’d learned. Elated as I was, I told the editor who called me that I needed to check a few things before saying yes. I was at The Experiment at the time, and I walked into the back office and told Matthew I’d been offered the job. I said I really wanted to take it, but wanted to know his opinion of the company and the people for whom I’d be working. He answered very positively, and gave specific reasons why the job would probably be a good fit for me. Having one employer I respected and trusted recommend another about whom I didn’t know beyond first impressions was the assurance I needed. I called back and said I’d be thrilled to begin as soon as possible.

The biggest lessons I learned about How to Lose a Job (or suffer setbacks in a job you keep):

• It’s OK to be hurt and angry, but before you decide the details, gather information. Lots of it. Primarily from people who know the business better than you. You don’t have to look to your “accuser’s” interpretation as the final one (e.g. “Your failings are too grievous for you to ever overcome”), but do look at accusations from many different angles.
• Keep “networking” well after you earn a job. When you encounter something in your work you wonder about, be on the look-out for someone who is an expert in metadata, or in the ways sales have changed over the past 40 years, or whatever, who would love to talk to you. And I pretty much guarantee there is someone out there who would love to talk to you.
• Learn to describe your shortcomings and strengths with great specificity. Hint: “I’m a people-person” or “I’m a self-starter” are not specific enough—for you or for the people you work with.

I’ll end this homily the same way I tell the story to old classmates I run into every 5 feet in Brooklyn and to my parents’ friends who want to know how I’m doing: losing my job was the single best thing that happened in my first year as a “book professional.” I learned how complicated good leadership and collaboration are, and to praise and cherish them when they do come along. I learned specifics about where I excel and where I do not. And I’m one of the few people (of any age) I know who LOVES her job, lock, stock, and barrel. That’s a darn good outcome, I’d say.