After having eCarList, the auto photography job that seemed so promising, peter out, and discovering that the catering job wasn’t going to do what I thought it was, I’ve been back in job ad mode. Nothing promising was showing up until, almost one on top of the other, a couple have materialized (on Craigslist, of course) that together should take care of us very well. The first one is really the most promising job I’ve had as an adult, in that it finally gets me into an industry in which I actually want to work: video production.

What’s funny is that as is, I’m really not qualified for the job. I saw an ad on Craigslist for a junior editor/production assistant. My understanding of both of those meant I was qualified for the latter and maybe for the former. I spent almost a week trying to get a sample of my uncompleted wedding video online for the guy to be able to see when I e-mailed about the job, assuming that with as little skills on paper as I’d have to promote me, I’d need some visual proof. But I never could figure it out, so I finally just responded with an e-mail saying, basically, look, I don’t have some of the technical skills you’re surely going to need, but I do have some of the creative and assistant skills you need, and I can learn the other quickly and would be willing to work for substantially less than what’s being offered (about six thousand dollars less). Plus I did have a wedding video I’d been editing as a sample if he’d like to see it. Amazingly he called me not fifteen minutes later to say he found my e-mail very interesting. After talking for a while he asked me to go ahead and come on in Friday, but he still wasn’t sure how he’d be able to work it out.

I went in Friday morning — croaky voiced and tired because I’ve been minor-league sick with the crud for almost three weeks now — and after a 45-minute wait while he finished with a younger guy who actually had a demo reel, he and I talked for almost an hour. I showed him my wedding video sample (on a menu-based DVD I’d cooked up in an hour the night before using Sony software I’d never used before), and after commiserating on the immaturity of too many young guys feeling entitled to a lot more than they’re worth, and the bitterness of older guys who’d already been doing it for years with their own companies, only to fail and have a chip on their shoulder about working for someone else, he finally said, “Well you’re an interesting guy.” He said I was attractive to him because of my maturity and the passion I had for the work itself. It was pretty obvious he really wanted to hire me, but couldn’t figure out how to justify it with my utter lack of experience on the technical side of things. Things like, you know, shooting, and mic-ing, and lighting, etc. At which point he said he might break the job into two jobs; he’d been thinking about it casually. He thanked me for coming in and said he’d give me a call in a week or so after he got back from a shoot in Florida if he’d figured out a way to use me.

I was home for about an hour when he called again, saying, “I’m guessing you didn’t expect to hear from me so soon.” I said no, really didn’t, but he said he’d thought about it and decided he could guarantee me pay for 20 hours a week, whether he had the hours for me or not, if I’d show him a good-faith effort to get up to speed. I can use the facilities whenever I want to do that, and the cameras over the weekends if they’re not being used. After 90 days we’ll review and bump me up however much we feel is fair. In other words, paid training in a field in which I’m hugely interested. Craziness. The moral of the story? It pays to be honest with people.

It’s now worked for the other job as well, which is shooting apartments for an online relocator. They pay much better than I would have expected, and the job is fairly easy for someone like me who’s pretty well versed with a camera at this point and knows the area (though they are a little pickier on the composition on the shots than I was expecting). Both jobs are extremely flexible, so I shouldn’t have much of a problem doing them together.

And suddenly our income situation appears solved. I’m always more guarded about saying that these days, based on past events, so we’ll see.