Late last month, I committed to doing a contract job outside of my existing employment. I didn’t think it would take a lot of time, and besides, extra money is always good. Of course, since it wasn’t urgent at the time, I didn’t really pay too much attention to it. As time went on, my day job started to make more demands on me, and I ended up just putting everything on the backburner — my social life, blogging, etc. But last week, I received a harsh reminder about this commitment, and now I’m in a haze of trying to do my dayjob as well as this thing I promised to do from awhile back. And quite frankly, it was probably a mistake to agree to take so much on right at the beginning. I’m at the point in my dayjob where responsibility is really rearing its ugly head, as I’m relied on to do more, and as more people are dependent on me. Now I feel like I have to half-ass this contract job, which I really don’t want to do. But I must, due to promises and commitments.

I really have to learn to say no.

I mix around with a lot of web-savvy folks in my social circle. Pretty much a majority of my friends work for some major technology company in the Valley. They’re either engineers or designers or developers and there are a few here and there that are in marketing and/or advertising. So I tend to attend a lot of events that are decidedly web-centric, and a few people have noticed me as a “regular attendee” of sorts. Of course, this leads them to think that I am probably a Web Person. As in, a Web Developer/Designer/Engineer that does Big Things with Web 2 Stuff like Tagging or Social Networking or some other Inflated Buzzword. When I tell people I work at CNet, it’s almost immediately assumed I work for the IT department (which I find hilarious, for reasons I can’t state in a public forum).

A few other of my friends who are not web people have reiterated the same sort of experience at these web-centric events. It’s to be expected I guess. But that still does not prepare me for the look of disappointment on their faces when I tell them that, No, I do not Work as a Web Tech. I write and edit stuff ABOUT tech, but even then in a limited capacity (I could go on about how non-Web people get little to no respect in the Valley, but that’ll have to wait for another day).

I was reminded of all this when I read Courtney’s entry about how she gets asked a lot about what she does. The same sort of thing happens to me all the time, and I almost always say “I’m an editor, for cell phone reviews. I write reviews as well as edit.” Which is a pretty accurate and to-the-point answer, and usually leads to people either backing off and going elsewhere or asking me more probing questions like “So, what cell phone should I get?” (I get this question A LOT).

But the truth is, that’s not all I do. I help put together a biweekly newsletter, I write a lot of “product lists” stories (like top five camera phones or something like that), I’m in charge of certain cell phone categories and brands (as in, I’m the go-to person on a few select products), I coordinate with PR people to send us review units, I write short product descriptions of items that don’t need a full review, I help out my senior editors in their daily duties, and I’ll hopefully take on some bigger tasks in the future. A big part of my job is also to just keep in touch with what’s going on in the tech world, and be hip to what’s trendy and new in cell phones and gadgetry in general. The latter is pretty easy, since that’s what I like to do anyway, and it’s largely part of why I love this line of work. I am all about shiny new toys.

Every once in awhile I’m asked how to get started as a writer, or how to get published, or how to get hired to write product reviews. And honestly, a lot of times I think I was just lucky. There’s the pre-requisite of good writing and editing skills obviously, but beyond that, it’s really just three things: 1) passion for a particular subject, 2) willingness to starve as a freelancer or as an intern, 3) did I mention passion? It’s not really an easy thing to be in this field; so many of my colleagues have left journalism to be in public relations or marketing, the public generally likes to hate on the media, our work is out there every day for public scrutiny and the criticism can be harsh. So in order to succeed, you have to be good, and you have to have passion for the job. You will never be as rich as your cousin who’s a doctor or your brother who’s an engineer. But damn it, you’re doing what you LOVE. And you can never lose sight of that.

Or you can sell out and write advertising copy. (There is no shame to this — I was THIS CLOSE to doing this when I was unemployed).

Well this turned out to be more like a seminar than I anticipated. Maybe I should go back to my alma mater and see if they need a part-time lecturer :p

I’m going to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show next year! I’ll be there from January 3rd to January 6th. I doubt I’ll have time for touristy things in Vegas, since I’ll be working all day and mingling in the evenings, but I’ll make sure to take plenty of pics nonetheless. Don’t know if any of you blog readers will be in Vegas as well, but feel free to contact me if you want to meet up