"Jump in! The Water's fine!"

Day one of my job began today, and holy shit do they throw you into the this job head first.

I mean, I show up at 10, expecting to sign some paperwork, get a tour of the newsroom, maybe decorate my desk a bit. But no, my editor wasn't in today, so I was handed a sheet of paper explaining how to log onto my new e-mail account, so then I could access a list of story ideas.

Welcome to the real world Kelleigh, we don't hold your hand. You already had four years of training, and now you have to show us what you learned. 

Now, this whole aspect was bit scary. It took me about an hour to build up the confidence to actually make a phone call (something I should have done within the first ten minutes). But I did it, I started getting accustomed to the area, outlined all the stories I wanted to write for this week's issue of the paper, and got to work.

Everything went smoothly until a reporter's nightmare began: no one was answering their phones, I mean NO ONE! On a typical day, I usually have to leave at least one message with a source, but they usually call me back within an hour or two. Instead, every person I called sent me straight to voicemail, and half of my day was spent doing background research for these mediocre stories that I may not even get published because my editor isn't even there to introduce me to the reporter I will be working with, and she or he may have already started working on the pieces I was planning on doing.

But by the end of the day I had it all figured out. Working for a newspaper, a real newspaper, is not a glamorous as the movies make it out to be. No, you don't spend your entire day running around chasing after one story. Instead, you have between five to eight stories a week that you need to write, and are required to produce that amount before your deadline. People don't always cooperate either, so half of your day is spent trying to get in contact with your sources while the other half is spent writing the 500 word article. By the end of the day you find yourself editing and re-editing your work in order to NOT look like an asshole, and hiding the fact that you've been Facebook chatting your friends since lunch. 

In the real world, you are required to produce a large quantity of articles, with some quality, and you have a lot of downtime. If I was still in college, that would be the time to sit and relax with a movie, or get a head start on my homework, but in the real world, you get paid for what you do during those hours, and with that you spend a lot of time twiddling your thumbs and waiting for something exciting to occur.

So be ready for it, because of everything college did for me, it never prepared me for the amount of downtime I would have. I think it's about time I get a hobby.