Personal Sharing - Writing and Job

 

I used to have a diary, where I pen down moments, feelings, some things that I am grateful for and definitely some things I repulsed, crushes (I have a huge list of em back then, can't remember if my husband was one of it), oh not to forget - my list of best friends and their crushes. I used to have the ones where theres a lock and you need a key to unlock it, because diaries are known to be superrr secretive and I'm sure we are all (still) privy into looking at other people's entries. haha. Those days were glorious. It could range from cheezy and sappy posts to "Dear God I hate this XXXX."

Well then blog exists now, but even people rarely blog nowadays because we all go to Instagram stories or posts to reach out to community right? 

I know no one reads my blog (except for my hubby thanks babee), heck no one even reads blog nowadays unless youre a famous influencer. But why do I still chose to keep it? I guess I have left writing for quite awhile, and it's a little rusty, plus my language usage still needs to be improved. But I don't wanna rush it - I wanna enjoy the process of developing myself and grow as a person, and I want to do it privately without anyone judging. My blog isn't private but if no one reads it I guess I'm safe hahaha. Unless I advertise it to my social media. Maybe one day when I'm confident enough.

I guess since its public, even though its a safe space for me, doesn't mean it's a safe space forever. Anyone can read, tweak my words, mislead my statement and made people view me as condescending in order to bring me down and netizens nowadays just believe about..anything. It's..scary. We live in a viral digital phenomenon - and people are capable of doing anything nowadays, the things you thought were impossible, could be possible, and anyone can act as your imposter and endanger your life with false statements. Words can kill - and if it doesn't, it can put you behind bars. 

Just to share, part of my job experience is to create a content for my company's magazine, so writing, editing, and proofreading are actually part of my job. I'm really bad at detecting mistakes, I love to write, but I certainly hate to cross check it - idk why but I guess my brain is wired for certain interest. Thankfully I have a colleague - who's really close to me like my sister as a proofreader for my content. Because when you make mistake, you need someone to let you know what you are doing wrong. Same goes to writing. You need at least one or two person to read it before you publish it. 

As a journalist, even slight mistakes can jeapordize your career, or get you sued. I know Malaysians - love to sue. It's a Malaysian thing to do. Anyways. I'm not a professional journalist or editor, but I do some jobs that involves writing and what not, and it kinda made me fell in love with it. I love writing, I love learning new vocabularies, current issues, and I'm happy to be able to grow in this field and learn more coz if I were to be a full time journalist which is my dream job, it's still a long way to go. I was considering to further my studies, but then it's another commitment which I'm not sure I can handle. The stress of assignments along with my work, the fees, and the sacrifice needed for weekends. I shudder even thinking about it, may Allah grant me and all of us ease in our affairs to achieve our goal. Ameen.

Anyhow, one time I wrote a speech for a minister for an event my company organized. It was a big event which I would not disclose, but there were some mistakes that I overlooked in the speech. Nothing major, but it was a factual kind of information, and it was my fault for not checking it over and over. And also the person I sent my speech to (which is the ministers PA I assumed) did not cross check the speech and it almost cost him his job. I was lucky enough not to be blamed at that time. 

People had no idea being a journalist, before publishing an article, it takes lots of work. Editing was done millions of times before you send to your higher supervisor, you have proofreaders to double triple quadraple quintaple and how many.."ples" check your content, alot of argument, and dealing with designers on how you want your content to look like, I have printed at least..10-15 copies of magazine and srunched them up and throwing them in the bin or shred them - then at the final you thought you are ready to publish it then theres some spelling mistakes. When you pass your articles to different people, they have their ways and opinion on how they want it to be, thus sometimes making it hard to publish things earlier. Welcome to the journalism world.

To be fair, I did't come from journalism background, but Alhamdullah I learnt alot and developed interest after I joined my company. It's not a media company, but we do have publicity department and social media handler for us to deal with. We are deprived of manpower at the moment, and certainly lacking departments needed, which is why sometimes the magazine are published later than expected date because we don't have professional editor and proofreader. So some people like myself have to act as both - and I applaud to all journalists, designers, editors, proofreaders, subeditors for woking together to produce a content. 

And I applaud you - you may joined a field that is far fetched from your education background, but I know you're doing great, maybe your pay isn't as much as you want to , maybe you are blessed with a lucrative salary - still I hope you are enjoy whatever you're doing. I dealt with alot of adversities as a person whos working TOTALLY different from my science background, plunged into several loopholes, get back up, but at the end of the day, I'm grateful because if I don't end up in where I am now, I might not have ascertain my interest in the Media world. But as I said - still long way to go, so many process to go through, risks to be considered, repercussions from the mistakes the more progress I made. May Allah ease my process of becoming a successful journalist one day. Ameen.

This is the first time I opened up about my job, part of it actually, it's easier telling people what you do, but behind the scenes, it can be a stressful job, albeit rewarding at the end of the day. 

I do have other dreams - probably to become a talkshow host, like Ellen DeGenerees, Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman, but I am really bad at public speaking, no joke. I stutter alot, I need to think for like 2 minutes before I say something. So, I crossed off that list and focused on writing instead - and I realized I'm more leaned to behind the scenes work. 

Well thats about it that I can think of. I will deliver my thoughts that I missed probably in the next entry. Until then, Ciaoo~

Disclaimer: My thoughts are from my own experience, I'm not a professional journalists nor editor. But in my company, I do act as one for specific tasks. 

Love, 

Sasha aka Hairulhaziq's Queen