An ideal job

The other day, Garrison Keillor was doing his English major schtick (“You want fries with
that?”) and hilariously suggested that the ideal job for an English graduate is in the food industry, the better to leave time and creative energy for writing novels. Copyediting? No…the best preparation for that, he remarked, is not the humanities but law enforcement (fierce growl: “You call that a gerund?!?”).

Fact of the matter is, though, that those of us who persist in believing higher education should entail education, not vocational training, are presented with many more career choices than teaching or flipping burgers. IMHO, editing is one of the best for people with degrees in the humanities.

No, it’s not likely to make you rich (neither is the classroom or Burger King)—although some editors do make six-figure salaries. They usually live in six-figure cities. Most of us earn enough to support a modestly comfortable lifestyle and—this is important—to live where we choose.

Unless you elect to teach K-12, faculty jobs on the college level are few and hard to land. You have to go where the jobs are; the likelihood that you will find a university or community college teaching job in any humanities discipline where your spouse is working or your family lives is very slim. But editorial work is everywhere.

After I made myself unemployable by finishing a Ph.D. in English, I drifted into journalism, published copiously, and eventually joined the editorial staff of Phoenix Magazine and then of Arizona Highways. Later I returned to academia, where for about ten years I taught writing and editing.

Recently, in connection with a writing project, I had occasion to mull over what I think of as the ideal job.

My ideal job. . .

• Puts my skills and talents to use
• Is somewhat entrepreneurial
• Is always interesting
• Puts me in contact with smart, interesting, and talented people
• Entails little or no office or academic politics
• Allows me to do some work from home
• Ends at the end of the day and does not expand to fill every waking moment
• Is not housed in a cube
• Pays more than just a living wage
• Pays for all the hours one works—in cash, not in comp time
• Offers a full range of health insurance options (i.e., more than just an HMO)
• Provides other benefits generously

My present job pretty much fills that bill.

I direct a university office that does preproduction work for scholarly journals, mostly copyediting. My four assistants and I read articles whose topics range from medieval and Renaissance history to mathematical bioscience. We deal with scholarly editors in a half-dozen disciplines and hundreds of authors who are experts on more subjects that I would care to count. We’re entirely self-starting, and, because we’re very specialized and off in our own corner, we rarely get into the fray of academic in-fighting. As a state job, the position offers excellent health-care benefits and a more than adequate 403b (although other universities offer a larger match). The five-figure salary is exactly at the average four-person family income in our state. We have our own office suite, so that even our most junior staffer has her own office; the ceiling-high windows in my office look out onto an atrium with a fountain and tropical plants. I’m paid to work twelve months a year, not, as when I was teaching, paid for nine months and then expected to spend the summer months working for free. And best of all, when I walk out the door I leave the job behind.

How is it better than owning an incorporated business?

• Someone else copes with the complicated government paperwork.
• I don’t have to deal with involved tax returns.
• I don’t have to buy health insurance on the open market.
• The work comes to me; I don’t chase after the work.
• I’m paid on time, without having to send out invoices and reminders. The university does not welch on its contract.
• I don’t have to wrangle subcontractors and find ways to pay them.
• I don’t have to do business with the government; I am the government.

How is it better than editing a city magazine?

• It offers a health insurance plan.
• It offers a retirement plan.
• Overtime is paid in cash, not in comp time (which you can’t eat)
• Little or no overtime is required—no overnighters!!
• The content of what we read is more sophisticated.
• I never have to rewrite contributors’ bad copy.
• I never write frothy little feature articles.
• It is amazingly better paid.

How is it better than editing a large regional magazine?

• What we read is far more challenging.
• I never have to rewrite contributors’ bad copy.
• The economic model is different and exerts less pressure on editors.

How is it better than teaching?

• It demands no unpaid overtime.
• I never have to try to make constructive comments on badly written copy carelessly slopped together at the last minute.
• It does not entail dealing with the public.
• Even quasiadministrative jobs get lots, lots more respect within the institution than do faculty jobs.
• Pay is significantly better.
• The service we perform is appreciated by the people we work with.

I do think it is the ideal job for me and feel very fortunate to have landed it. For a person who wants to take undergraduate and advanced degrees in an academic subject and then get a decent job, a seat at the copyeditor’s desk is perfect: it’s interesting work, it pays better than teaching, and it can take you to any part of the world you choose.

by V.H.

Tags: careers, jobs