Perhaps one reason that I feel qualified to have a professional blog is that I am quite confident in how I engage with people at a professional level. The proof is in the punch: I have 5 jobs. Seriously. My primary job, as I’ve mentioned, is as 
a copywriter at a marketing company that specializes in helping employers communicate with their employees—specifically focusing on loss prevention. For the past 8 weeks I have been working with another copywriter and the two of us work under the company’s studio manager / copyeditor / copywriter. But I was hired to replace the second copywriter for her maternity leave. The official replacement occurred today; her last day was Friday. So now my work load is assuredly going to at least double, but I am up to the challenge. I find copywriting fun and engaging—but I think that’s best left for another post.
My second job is a part of my funding package that was offered to me by the University of Waterloo: I am a teaching assistant for a distance education course. The course is English 210F: Business Communications and I am responsible for marking the work of 35 students. I also deal with all student correspondences because it is an online course. Again, I find this job engaging and fun. Although, I’ll admit, the first assignment was a professional portfolio—resume, cover letter, and job description—and after marking about 25 of these assignments, I was getting a bit bored. But thus is life. Work can’t always be exciting! But if you take on your assignments with enthusiasm and positivity, you’ll inevitably enjoy it.
My third job is a research assistantship for a psychiatrist in Toronto, Ontario—about an hour from where I live. I was referred to this psychiatrist by a professor in my department at school. This psychiatrist is currently working on his thesis for a masters degree in Education focusing on the education of medical residents. 
His research project is fascinating: he argues that end-of-life interviews (dignity interventions) between medical residents and patients can be a profoundly educational experience for these residents and hopes to prove it through analyzing transcripts of a number of these interviews. That’s where I come in. Due to my background in literary and linguistic studies, I am going to do a middle-level narrative analysis of these interviews and search for narrative or linguistic patterns that emerge. I am quite looking forward to it and I will share my findings here.
I was just hired at my fourth job this weekend—quite randomly I have to add. On Friday night, I was out for drinks at a local pub that typically hosts a lot of Waterloo’s graduate student population. The bartender, Christina, recognized me and asked, “Are you drunk?”
“No,” I replied.
“Do you know how to be a bouncer?” She asked.
“I used to do it in Edmonton when I was younger. Is everything alright?”
It turned out that the owner of this particular pub, who also owns a club across the street, had his entire door staff walk out on him that very evening. She asked if I’d like to make some extra money and help this gentleman out. My friends were leaving soon anyway so I went over to lend a hand. Later on, I asked if he was hiring doormen and he enthusiastically offered me the job. Normally, I wouldn’t work as a doorman at a bar, but I’ve been to this particular club once or twice and the crowd is always very positive and laid back. That night I kicked out a very drunk young man who I noticed smack a girl on the rear, but that was the only incident. I worked the next night too and there were zero incidents. 
My fifth job is mowing the lawns of the properties that my landlord owns. He approached me to help him out with this a few weeks ago. I’ve always been on good terms with my landlord, I’ve helped him out a lot and he’s done the same for me. The best example of the latter was a massive flood we had in the basement of our house. I cleaned up the terrible, sewage-ridden mess that was left over and he compensated me for my time but also thanked me profusely for not forcing him to hire professionals. Anyway, I only mow the lawns every second Saturday and rather than receive a payment, I just asked for him to put it towards the monthly bills.
Needless to say, it’s bound to be a busy summer. Anyway, here’s the main point of my post: professionalism pays off. Sure, being nice to everyone doesn’t always work out in your favor immediately. There have been many times where I feel like I’m being taken advantage of or being overly ethical or fair. But when you present that type of persona to people, they remember it and when they need a go-to guy or gal, it’s going to be you. Aside from the first two jobs, the latter three were all offered to me by people I had dealt with in the past who knew they could rely on me—alright the bar job wasn’t offered to me by the owner, but the bartender knew me and she knew I was reliable enough to ask for help.
That’s all for now! Wish me luck.
