At last, a job

On Monday morning, July 26, 2010, for the first time in more than 54 weeks, I’m taking Highway 12 to Nashville to go to work.

I accepted a job offer last week from the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a temporary employee. My position is writer/editor on the external affairs staff, part of the agency’s Nashville-based flood recovery unit for Tennessee. The contract runs for up to 120 days. I’ll have to ask whether that’s calendar days — or, about four months — or M-F work days — or, about six months.

Six months … that’s about the length of time I mistakenly assumed I’d be out of work after my layoff from The Tennessean on July 9 last year.  I had been at Nashville’s daily newspaper for close to 15 years.  In many ways — some good, some not — it had been like a family. I’ve said many times over the past year that I’m not sorry to be gone, just sorry about the resultant cash flow problem.  But, as long as I didn’t have a paycheck to replace the one with the little Gannett Co. “G” logo, I was emotionally tied to the paper.

On Monday, I’ll finally be able to say that I’m a former employee of The Tennessean — and mean it through and through.

Wish me luck!

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