Our Ben Fong-Torres loses a job and gains a half-dozen others, from New York to San Francisco, with a stop in Cincinnati.
I lost my job a couple of months ago, and life couldnt be better.
I was just about ready to run out of the office in South San Francisco, screaming from sheer boredom with the job (VP of content at a marketing company that produced branded magazines sent out by e-mail), when the company got sold.
Yes, it was a big-salary; yes, the people I worked with were great. But spending a third of your life doing something youd just as soon not be doing is well, its something too many of us do.
Not me; no more.
And it seems as though the moment I was set free, a happy houseful of doors flew open, inviting me in for a look-see. Radio! Television! Movies! Books! Magazines! And, of course, more!
Some of these opportunities came before the downsizing at my company. Its been months, for example, since David Ling, an attorney-turned-film producer, called from New York to ask about a film option on The Rice Room, my 1994 memoirs. Weve now signed a deal, so Id advise getting in line immediately to see the film And Ive been writing, on and off, for Parade magazine since a couple years ago. Its on again, with profiles of Tim McGraw, the country superstar, and Ellen DeGeneres coming out (if youll pardon the pun) in August and September.
To check on a couple of these doors, Dianne and I went to New York in early June. Actually, we were there to go upstate, to a renewal of...