even though for the last month that i was there i was vomiting every day and emotionally ill, when i was let go i was pretty much devastated. since i had been there i accomplished some ridiculous things over my eight months as community manager: millions of hits, over a half dozen parties in three different countries (with a budget of less than $500), thousands of photos, etc etc etc. so i never thought that i could be canned.
but life is a bizarre deal. and sure enough, despite my indisputable numbers, i was out. none of it made sense. least of all the fact that i was relatively unhappy in my job and bummed that i had been relieved of my duties.
theres a cheesy saying, though, that says “when one door closes another one opens”. and whattya know, just as i was trying to figure out what i was going to do with my newly found summer vacation (which i knew wasnt going to last that long because i hadnt made very much money over those eight months) carolyn kellogg was stepping down as editor of LAist. she sent jake dobkin and jen chung a link to this very blog, and less than two weeks later i was the new editor of that amazing blog.
i had gone from being totally unloved and vomiting and having to go to an office where i sat quietly and wasnt invited into meetings where i belonged to having my office be my couch. jen and jake actually meant it when they said that hits and quality was all they cared about and they left me alone to build whatever i wanted at LAist. they even let me do the one thing i had been trying to do for years – drive around america and write about it.
now here we are two years after being axed and im at the LA Times. in part because of not just what i was able to do at LAist but because of what i did at buzznet.
im not one who believes in luck. im not one who believes in divine intervention or karma or any of that crap. usually i simply believe in hard work and a little bit of prayer. but looking back over the last three years, especially what went down two years ago yesterday its hard not to believe that Good had a plan for me, professionally, which led to the unbelievable gig i have now.
which tells me that we should never give up on our dreams. we should never get too depressed about anything. and we should never stop trying even when it appears that those closest to us dont appreciate or respect what we’re doing. what we’re doing is growing. and sometimes we get transplanted at the exact right time in a place where we can really blossom.
one thing i would like to add: the day i got fired and wrote about it on my blog i got dozens and dozens of emails and comments. you have no idea how much all of that cheered me up. so thanks to everyone who was there for me when i was pretty much at my lowest. often i tell people at the Times that blogging has given me everything, and that day it gave me so much love when i felt so lousy. its one reason that i will probably never stop writing on this blog.
