This past week I just started a new job at BYU. I’m a writing advisor for the FHSS (Family of Home and Social Sciences) writing lab. It’s GREAT! I help students work on their papers and work on their writing skills, and I really love it.
How I got this job is an interesting story. Honestly, it was really just a series of flukes that ended up working beautifully. I was just in the right time at the right place and fell into it.
It began when I went to the BYU Bookstore to talk with my old boss in the stockroom and figure out all the paperwork for getting rehired. I’d talked with him at the end of the winter semester, and he knew my schedule and had told me that everything was fine for me to work in the fall–we just had to fill out the paperwork and go through the formalities.
Well…long story short, when we finally got into the rehiring interview and I told him that I could only work MWF, his face dropped and he gave me a card with a number on it to call and check on my job application the next day. He said that he wasn’t sure if they had a place for me because I couldn’t work TTh, but that he’d try.
It wasn’t hard to see, though, that I wasn’t going to get rehired.
Here’s a funny thing. I tend to get really worked up and angry over little things, like slow drivers or computers that don’t work or paperwork that I didn’t know I had to fill out. But when it comes to major things–like my old boss dropping the ball, leaving me without a job–I’m really mellow about it. Even though I needed money and didn’t know what I’d do without a job, I figured that this had happened for a reason and that everything would work out in the end.
It did. I was walking through the Wilk on my way home one day and decided to check the job boards. I skipped over all the custodial and dining jobs (those are dead ends anyways) and looked at the academic ones.
Usually when I look at these jobs, I feel that I’m much too underqualified. However, as I was skimming over them, my eye fell on the ad for being a writing advisor. I love writing, so I decided to read a little more closely. To my surprise, as I read over the qualifications, I found that I met almost all of them.
I picked up an application, selected some writing samples, and wrote a cover letter. I was a little bit worried because I spent so much time talking about my experience as Quark writing VP, since that’s a non-academic setting, but that ended up being one of my most attractive selling points. When they asked me what my greatest weakness was, I said “procrastination,” but then I was able to turn around and say “but I set a goal to write a novel last year and achieved it” through consistent, daily writing. Even though the advisor position is for academic writing only, my experiences with creative writing made me look surprisingly attractive.
The thing that sealed me the job was my schedule. They needed MWF and practically all my classes are TTh. So not only were they excited because of my qualifications, they were excited because I was available when they needed it. Getting the job wasn’t that hard from there.
So now I’m a writing advisor, and I LOVE it! I sit around the lab, chatting and hanging out with all the other cool people who work there, and every once and a while an MFHD or Psychology major comes in with a paper and we look over it. Good people, low-stress work environment, work that I actually love doing, really good pay for an on-campus job, and best of all, it’s the kind of job that looks REALLY good on a resume. This has got to be the best job I’ve landed since I came here at BYU. I’m so happy and thankful that things worked out the way they did!
